‘Mother, Couch’: Sara Murphy & Niclas Larsson Discuss Their Secretive TIFF Competition Title Starring Taylor Russell And Ewan McGregor
deadline.comLicorice Pizza and If Beale Street Could Talk producer Sara Murphy arrives at TIFF this week with the intimate yet ambitious feature Mother, Couch, the first project produced under Fat City, the production label she launched last year alongside War Pony producer Ryan Zacarias.
Starring Taylor Russell, Ewan McGregor, and Ellen Burstyn, the pic is written and directed by Swedish filmmaker Niclas Larsson in his feature film debut.
The story is adapted from a novel of the same name by Swedish filmmaker Jerker Virdborg. “The book is very different from the film,” Larsson said of his adaptation. “In fact, the first thing I asked Jerker was how free I could be with the adaptation, and he said, ‘Look, steal whatever you want to steal, and go with it.’ So that’s that’s what I did.” The biggest change Larsson made on screen was moving the story from Sweden to the US.
His abstract plot followsMother (Burstyn), who stations herself on a green couch in a remote furniture store, refusing to get up, leaving her three estranged children – David (Ewan McGregor), Gruffudd (Rhys Ifans), and Linda (Lara Flynn Boyle) to figure out why.
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