EXCLUSIVE: Marc Turtletaub will direct a feature adaptation of Ben Reeves’ novel Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt.
The novel, which landed on the New York Times Bestsellers List in its first week, will be adapted by screenwriter Oren Moverman.
Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt tells the story of Travis, who lives with his cat in a small, gray town. His job is to offer people comfort in their final hours of life, which he does without complaint or judgment. But when Travis meets Dalia, a midwife, and her boisterous eight-year-old daughter Layla, who live across the hall, he begins to understand what it means to be truly alive—and what might be irrevocably lost in death.
Moverman and Turtletaub have enjoyed a long-standing creative partnership. Moverman wrote Turtletaub’s 2018 film Puzzle and his latest feature, Borges and Me, which debuts this weekend at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Turtletaub revealed his plans to adapt Reeves’ novel during an interview with Deadline, ahead of his trip to Edinburgh.
“The next one is based on a book written by the British author Ben Reeves. It’s called Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt. It just came out and, in its first week, was on the New York Times bestseller list, so we think it’s quite special,” Turtletaub said, adding the film will be shot in the UK. You can read that full interview here.
Borges and Me is Turtletaub’s first feature as a director since Jules (2023). The film follows a young graduate student at the University of St Andrews who embarks on the trip of a lifetime across the Scottish Highlands accompanied by the legendary poet Jorge Luis Borges. The picture is an adaptation of Jay Parini’s New York Times bestselling memoir Borges and Me: An Encounter.
Fionn Whitehead and Luis Gnecco lead the film alongside a band of popular Scottish actors, including Alan Cumming, Freya Mavor, John Gordon Sinclair, Morven Christie, Peter Mullan, and Stuart Bowman. Borges and Me debuts on Saturday, August 15, at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. The festival ends on August 19.
