Based on Ian Parker’s New Yorker article, Jake Gyllenhaal is set to star in ‘A Suspense Novelist’s Trail of Deceptions.’
Jake Gyllenhaal is confirmed to appear in a forthcoming TV show about a sensational New Yorker story written in 2019 about Dan Mallory, publisher of the mystery novel The Woman in the Window.
That’s not all. Janicza Bravo, an indie director who’s on course to blow up every time we actually get to see her latest film Zola, is attached to writing and directing the anticipated show, EW learned.
Mallory authored The Woman in the Window under the pen name A.J. Finn back in 2018. The New Yorker report, titled “A Suspense Novelist’s Trail of Deceptions,” suspected Mallory of fabricating facets of his life, including boasting about receiving a doctorate from Oxford University, struggling with a brain tumor, losing his mother to cancer while his brother committed suicide.
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In a statement to The New Yorker at the time, Mallory claimed he lived with extreme bipolar II disorder that culminated in crushing depressions, delirious feelings, dark obsessions, and memory issues.
He made an apology for taking advantage or being “seen to have taken advantage of anyone else’s goodwill, however desperate the circumstances; that was never the goal.”
A doctor who had never seen Mallory but had talked to the paper claimed that anyone with bipolar II disorder cannot relate to the condition delusions, amnesia, or chronic deceit for the secondary benefit, or to get recognition.
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The proposed show, for which Bravo is co-writing a pilot with Brian Savelson, centers on an unstable character who thinks he has a brain tumor that he still does not have and who mourns the loss of family members that are not really deceased, while preying on the compassion of others to get away with almost everything.
“What may have started out as my dog ate homework turns into my mother died of cancers, my brother took his life, and I have a double doctorate,” Bravo said in a statement to Deadline.
Our protagonist is white, male, and pathological. There is a void in him and he fills it by duping people. He’s a scammer. The series examines white identity and how we as an audience participate in making room for this behavior. Getting to partner with Annapurna and [production company] Nine Stories is a gift and I am most thrilled for what lies ahead.
Since launching directorial debut Lemon in 2017, Bravo took over and co-wrote Zola, based on the popular Twitter thread that originally opened, “You want to hear a story about how me and this bitch here fell out? It’s kind of long, but it’s full of suspense.” The movie stars Taylour Paige and Riley Keough.
Bravo and Gyllenhaal will be producing the upcoming show alongside Riva Marker, Megan Ellison, Sue Naegle, Sammy Scher, and Susan Goldberg.
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A Suspense Novelist's Trail of Deceptions Jake Gyllenhaal Janicza Bravo Zola
Last modified: August 21, 2020
