It’s always nice to get some good news on a Monday, like today, lovely news that there are confirmed talks of Eva Longoria and Beyonce Knowles playing lovers in the new Sophia Coppola film Tipping the Velvet. Yes things started looking just a little bit better around the movieblog when the people over at digitalspy.com gave us this:
Eva Longoria and Beyonce Knowles are in talks to play lovers in a new movie. The pair are in negotiations with director Sofia Coppola for the lead parts in the movie Tipping The Velvet. The film is an adaptation of the novel of the same name, by Sarah Waters, and tells the story of a lesbian musician and her partner.
“We’ve had Brokeback Mountain so the time is right for this divine novel to get the same treatment,” Beyonce said.
Longoria added: “Yes it’s true, we’re talking about doing that. It’s such a wonderful novel, a beautiful love story.”
No complaints here. This is supposed to be a great book and it has been adapted once with good results on BBC Two back in 2002. So why not the big screen?
If Hollywood is going brokeback then the girls should get to go for a ride up the mountain too. I haven’t seen any really great lesbian movies since Bound and Gia.
My only concern is with the acting. Don’t get me wrong, I know that Eva has talent, and Beyonce isn’t terrible but…these sort of roles do require a good amount of screen presence, chemistry and subtly. None of which have been required from either actress in the past. Maybe the new film Dream Girls will convince me more of Beyonce’s acting chops and I know that Longoria has been talking for a long time about wanting to do something more serious so she will no doubt be putting in a lot of work for this role.
But still, if Sophia Coppola does cast both of these beautiful young women she will be taking a bit of a risk. Will they draw in hoards of men and curious women to see the movie? God yes. But will the film be better or worse because these two are involved? That remains to be seen.
