Saoirse Ronan to star in On Chesil Beach adaptation #book2movies

Saoirse Ronan with Domhnall Gleeson in Brooklyn ... this could be a shot from On Chesil Beach

Oh, I hope this is actually happening. There’s been talk about an adaptation of Ian McEwan’s acclaimed On Chesil Beach for such a long time! I wrote about it November 2011, when Carrie Mulligan was rumored to play Florence, supposedly McEwan’s choice. That didn’t happen, obviously,  but it’s definitely on this time, with Saoirse Ronan set to star as Florence. I have a hunch Ian McEwan would approve! 

Have you read the book?

A novel of remarkable depth and poignancy from one of the most acclaimed writers of our time.
It is July 1962. Florence is a talented musician who dreams of a career on the concert stage and of the perfect life she will create with Edward, an earnest young history student at University College of London, who unexpectedly wooed and won her heart. Newly married that morning, both virgins, Edward and Florence arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their worries about the wedding night to come. Edward, eager for rapture, frets over Florence’s response to his advances and nurses a private fear of failure, while Florence’s anxieties run deeper: she is overcome by sheer disgust at the idea of physical contact, but dreads disappointing her husband when they finally lie down together in the honeymoon suite.

Ian McEwan has caught with understanding and compassion the innocence of Edward and Florence at a time when marriage was presumed to be the outward sign of maturity and independence. On Chesil Beach is another masterwork from McEwan—a story of lives transformed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.

 No word on who will play Edward. Would Domhnall Gleeson work as the virginal history student? Who would you cast?

Filming begins this fall with Dominic Cooke making his feature directorial debut.