Jim Broadbent, Imogen Poots Join Irvine Welsh Adaptation ‘Filth’
When last wechecked inwith the film adaptation ofIrvine Welsh’s novelFilth, which is being directed byJon S. Baird, the days were still long and warm. That August update revealed that the film about an evil Edinburgh cop would featureJames McAvoy,Jamie BellandAlan Cummingin the key roles.
The film is about to shoot, with a start date set for next week, and it has added a few people.Jim Broadbent,Eddie Marsan,Joanne FroggattandImogen Pootsare on board now, all of which is good news. But it seems like Alan Cumming might have fallen away. More details on that below.
ThankVarietyfor the casting news. The trade doesn’t say anything about Alan Cumming in the casting lineup, but the film’s IMDB page now hasJohn Sessionslisted for the role Cumming was said to have when last we talked about the film.
Too bad about that loss, but John Sessions is great, so if that’s the swap I won’t complain too much. (Check out hisAlan Rickman impersonation!) Seems like a totally different direction for the character if so, but we’ll see how it all shakes out.) And Broadbent and Poots are additions for which I expect to see no resistance whatsoever.
Here once more is the synopsis of Welsh’s novel. No word on whether that tapeworm will make it into the movie but, as ever, I’m keeping fingers crossed. If Werner Herzog can throw iguanas into hisBad Lieutenant, surely the tapeworm doesn’t have to be cut fromFilth.
Talk about truth in advertising! Irvine Welsh’s novel about an evil Edinburgh cop is filthy enough to please the most crud-craving fans of his blockbuster debut, Trainspotting. Our hero, Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson, is a cross between Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutenant and John Belushi in Animal House. His task is to nab a killer who has brained the son of the Ghanaian ambassador, but bigoted Bruce is more urgently concerned with coercing sex from teenage Ecstasy dealers, planning vice tours of Amsterdam, and mulling over his lurid love life. He’s also got a tapeworm, whose monologue is printed right down the middle of many pages. Here’s one of this unusually articulate parasite’s realizations: “My problem is that I seem to have quite a simple biological structure with no mechanism for the transference of all my grand and noble thoughts into fine deeds.”
