Gwyneth Paltrow is to star and executive produce Netflix’s movie adaptation of best-selling book Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage, which was penned by Belle Burden.
Gwyneth Paltrow is to star in a movie adaptation of best-selling book Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage.
The 53-year-old actress will also executive produce the film, which will be produced by Stacey Sher, and the script will be penned by Heidi Schreck.
Netflix has secured the rights to the movie following a bidding war.
Strangers, which is written by Belle Burden, made its debut on The New York Times bestseller list.
The novel’s synopsis reads: “In March 2020, Belle Burden was safe and secure with her family at their house on Martha’s Vineyard, navigating the early days of the pandemic together – building fires in the late afternoons, drinking whisky sours, making roast chicken. Then, with no warning or explanation, her husband of twenty years announced that he was leaving her. Overnight, her caring, steady partner became a man she hardly recognised. He exited his life with her like an actor shrugging off a costume.”
In the book, Burden looked back on her marriage “through a new lens”.
The synopsis states: “In Strangers, Burden revisits her marriage, searching for clues that her husband was not who she always thought he was. As she examines her relationship through a new lens, she reckons with her own family history and the lessons she intuited about how a woman is expected to behave in the face of betrayal. Through all of it, she is transformed. The discreet, compliant woman she once was – someone nicknamed ‘Belle the Good’ – gives way to someone braver, someone determined to use her voice.
“With unflinching honesty and profound grace, Burden charts a path through heartbreak to show the power of a woman who refuses to give up on love. Strangers is a stunning, deeply moving, compulsively readable memoir heralding the arrival of a thrilling new literary talent.”
Paltrow recently ended a seven-year movie hiatus to appear in Marty Supreme alongside Timothée Chalamet and Odessa A’zion.
But the star was “petrified” about returning to a film set.
She told Entertainment Weekly’s The Awardist podcast: “Acting is so weird. It’s so hard to explain how you do it. It’s not a skillset that… it’s not a trade that you learn and you get onboarded into how to do something.
“It’s so weird and ephemeral and kind of magic. So I was like, how did I used to do this? And am I still going to be able to do this? Am I going to be able to access all that stuff and energy and in the moment?”
Gwyneth Paltrow to star in Netflix’s Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage adaptation
