The problem with reading a headline like "Joan Didion’s Goodbye To All That Optioned For Feature Film," is that the mind quickly conjures up a sun-soaked afternoon meeting at the Chateau Marmont, where people like Ashton Kutcher and Jonah Hill are sitting around brainstorming on their next big project. One of them mentions their new lady friend is reading Didion's famous essay, and next thing you know Hill is dropping his "clean and rad and powerful" stamp on it as Kutcher orders another round while flashing his proud, goofy smile.
Deadline reports that the essay, all 4028 words, has been optioned by producers Megan Carlson and Brian Sullivan, who used to work together at George Lucas’ ILM. Sullivan told them, "It’s been a dream of mine for years to bring this essay to the screen... It’s been a part of my being for 40 years, and then the planets aligned and here we are. The moment has come for Goodbye To All That.” (Just not... this other one.)
The essay, which first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in 1967 under the title Farewell to the Enchanted City, is a timeless take on falling in love with New York City in your twenties, and then leaving it upon realizing "it is distinctly possible to stay too long at the Fair." It's so perfect that no one ever has to write a leaving NYC essay again. And certainly no one has to star it a feature length version of it. But if someone does, maybe it should be Felicity Jones?
