2011’s Crazy, Stupid, Love was my favorite romantic comedy of that year, thanks as much to directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa as the all-star cast, which included Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore and Emma Stone. Hilarious, unconventional and excitingly truthful, it was the rare romcom that defied every pitfall of its genre.
Next, Ficarra and Requa will be taking on Focus with Will Smith and Margot Robbie, but the project that the directing duo has lined up after that is even more exciting. Today, we learned that Ficarra and Requa will be partnering with Tina Fey and her former 30 Rock writer Robert Carlock for an adaptation of Kim Barker’s memoir The Taliban Shuffle.
As per The Hollywood Reporter, Barker’s memoir covered her time:
“As a fish out of water in Kabul, filing stories about militants, being a woman in wartime Iraq and Pakistan, dealing with boredom interspersed with dashes of violence and the promiscuous war-correspondent culture.”
Based on that and the official synopsis for The Taliban Shuffle (below), this sounds like an unusual and potentially very funny project. Ficarra, Requa, Fey and Carlock are a formidable team, and Barker’s memoir was extremely well-received, with many calling it a fresh, hilarious and gripping take on life in the wartorn Middle East.
I don’t know about you, but I’ll be very excited to watch this movie come together – no release date or additional casting information is yet available, but We Got This Covered will, as always, be sure to keep you posted.
When Kim Barker first arrived in Kabul as a journalist in 2002, she barely owned a passport, spoke only English and had little idea how to do the “Taliban Shuffle” between Afghanistan and Pakistan. No matter—her stories about Islamic militants and shaky reconstruction were soon overshadowed by the bigger news in Iraq. But as she delved deeper into Pakistan and Afghanistan, her love for the hapless countries grew, along with her fear for their future stability. In this darkly comic and unsparing memoir, Barker uses her wry, incisive voice to expose the absurdities and tragedies of the “forgotten war,” finding humor and humanity amid the rubble and heartbreak.
