Screenhead

Fans of the Che Guevara road movie The Motorcycle Diaries will be pleased with this news. Director Walter Salles and writer Jose Rivera will team up again, this time to adapt the modern American novel ‘American Rust’, penned by Philipp Meyer. Scott Stuber (The Break-Up, Role Models) will produce.

American Rust is Meyer’s first novel, and it tells the tale of two childhood friends, Isaac and Billy. Set in a dying steel town in Pennsylvania, a murder is committed that involves the boys, and through betrayal and arguments, leads to a split in the friendship that may affect the rest of their lives. The novel has been lauded by critics, with comparisons made with the likes of Cormac McCarthy and William Faulkner.

While The Motorcycle Diaries was an entertaining film, many criticised it for distorting events to glorify and idealise the young Che, despite the reality being far from that (and of course the problem that the revolutionary became overly vicious in his later years). Meyer’s novel is praised for its ability to find drama in the drab and downbeat lives of a decaying community, and if a film adaptaion merely tries to replicate the main plot points, it may indeed miss the point of the tale. Regardless, it will be an interesting prospect so see how a Brazilian director and a Puerto Rican writer take on a story of an American community.