Sara Flannery Murphy's "The Possessions"

Sara Flannery Murphy grew up in Arkansas, where she divided her time between Little Rock and Eureka Springs, a small artists’ community in the Ozark Mountains. She received her MFA in creative writing at Washington University in St. Louis and studied library science in British Columbia. She lives in Oklahoma with her husband and son.

Here Murphy dreamcasts an adaptation of The Possessions, her first novel:

Maybe there are authors out there who aren’t interested in their novels’ theoretical movie adaptations. I’m definitely not one of them; I love playing the casting game during the writing process.

Mia Wasikowska would be a great Eurydice. She makes even quiet, repressed personalities feel multilayered. She also has a subtle dark side that I appreciate. Many of her roles are girls and women who switch from observers to participants: Alice, Jane Eyre, Edith in Crimson Peak, India in Stoker. That’s a quality I see in Edie as well.

I can imagine Eva Green as Sylvia. She’d capture the intensity and inherent mystery that Sylvia needs as a character who’s mostly interpreted through other people. And the contrast between Green and Wasikowska would mirror the contrast between Edie and Sylvia that runs through the novel.

Ana may be a secondary character, but I have a major soft spot for her. Rosemarie DeWitt has long been a favorite actor of mine, and she has a sense of humor and a sharpness that would bring Ana to life.

For the director, I’d be thrilled to see Park Chan-wook bring The Possessions to the big screen. I love his Gothic sensibility. He’s not afraid of melodrama, but has a talent for lushness and polish. But I’d be equally happy with Jane Campion, whose smart, subversive films have inspired me for years. Although Top of the Lake is a miniseries, Campion’s treatment of the moody, disturbing subject matter makes me curious to see what she’d do with The Possessions.

Really, I’d love to see what either director could create out of the shadowy halls of the Elysian Society, the bodies in their ghostly white uniforms, and Edie’s burgeoning recklessness.

Visit Sara Flannery Murphy's website.

--Marshal Zeringue