Noah Baumbach Abandons Adaptation of Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children to Crazy Heart Director Scott Cooper

October 12, 2011

By Christine Spines

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The news that Scott Cooper (“Crazy Heart”) has taken over Noah Baumbach‘s long-gestating adaptation of Claire Messud‘s The Emperor’s Children begs the question: Has Baumbach ceded his position as the unofficial auteur of entitled, over-educated, liberal guilt-stricken urbanites? This is not a constituency whose problems engender much sympathy (let alone interest) from the mainstream moviegoers. But for fans of the book, this creative baton-change is confusing to say the least.

Rarely has a filmmaker been more perfectly in synch with the mindset of a novel’s characters and themes than Noah Baumbach was with the nebulous urban ennui and post-9/11 angst that form the basis of The Emperor’s Children. So it seemed like kismet when he signed on to adapt the bestselling 2006 novel about a trio of thirtyish New Yorkers grappling with the struggle to find meaning and connection in lives buffered by privilege and prestigious careers in media. Each of the three main characters is over-educated, over-qualified, and under-satisfied with their jobs as documentary producer, terminally clever cultural critic, and second-generation journalist working on a book about the semiotics of children’s fashion.

This would be rich material for any filmmaker. But these archetypes of angst seem to inhabit the same solipsistic spheres as the privileged characters who populate Baumbach’s entire oeuvre, from his 1995 directorial debut “Kicking and Screaming” (an ensemble piece about aimless college grads trading witticisms) to “The Squid and the Whale” (his masterpiece of modern neurosis) to “Greenberg” (a noble attempt to capture the casual cruelty to which creative people feel entitled).

Few directors working today have so consistently focused their work on capturing such a specific slice of the population — bourgeois dissatisfied white people — in such a stark and frequently unflattering light. Baumbach tends to stock his films with cringe-inducing moments, the best of which hold a magnifying glass up to the audience most likely to turn up at the art houses where his movies play. Even now, it’s hard to watch young Jesse Eisenberg pretentiously tell his girlfriend that The Great Gatsby is “minor Fitzgerald.”

So who better to wrestle with the complexities of Messud’s knotty insights? Frankly, Cooper’s is not a name that would have made our list of backup choices. It takes some uncomfortable thematic contortions to connect the search for meaning to the redemption tale of “Crazy Heart,” about a broken down country singer, and Messud’s novel about the disconnect between good intentions and integrity.

The good news is that Cooper seems to have rebooted the project with two very promising additions to the cast: Rachel McAdams and Emma Thompson. Keira Knightley and Richard Gere were attached to Baumbach’s version, and there’s no word yet on whether they’re still involved.

Either way, this is a work of complex beauty and penetrating insight and one that will require a sly confidence to accurately translate its subtle satire to the big screen. We’re proceeding here with wary optimism that Cooper will pull it off with aplomb. If he does so, “The Emperor’s Children” could make for a fascinating and moving companion piece to “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” possibly paving the way for a new genre of post-9/11 filmmaking.

What are your thoughts on the prospects for this new Baumbach-less iteration of The Emperor’s Children. Who will replace Baumbach as the auteur of Generation Angst? And what novels would you most like to see Baumbach adapt instead? Our vote: Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom. Paging Scott Rudin …

Tags: Claire Messud, Crazy Heart, Emma Thompson, Freedom, Jonathan Franzen, Keira Knightley, Noah Baumbach, post 9/11 films, Rachel McAdams, Scott Cooper, Scott Rudin, The Emperor's Children, urban angst