It’s been over a decade since Jessica Biel’s stint as a series regular on 7th Heaven came to an end and close to five years since we last saw her in a prototypical “blockbuster” movie with 2012’s Total Recall remake, which was ironically anything but. Biel has gone from “It Girl” to Gone Girl, and the blame can almost certainly be traced back to the Gerard Butler Rom-Com Curse that she was infected with on the set of Playing for Keeps. If it can take down Heigl, it can take down anyone.
And while we’re sure that raising the offspring of a Timberlake is a full-time job in and of itself (especially when he’s off crashing everybody’s weddings), it’s safe to say that the entertainment world could use a little more Jessica Biel in its life, what with Jessica Alba also being M.I.A and all. Luckily, it appears we’ll be getting at least a taste of that when Biel makes her return to television in the upcoming USA pilot, The Sinner.
Based on the 2008 novel of the same name by German writer Petra Hammesfahr, The Sinner will see Biel star as “a young mother overcome by an inexplicable fit of rage [who] commits a startling and very public act of violence – and to her horror has no idea why,” per Deadline.
The event launches an inverted and utterly surprising crime thriller whose driving force is not the who or the what – but the why. A rogue investigator finds himself obsessed with uncovering the woman’s buried motive, and together they travel a harrowing journey into the depths of her psyche and the violent secrets hidden in her past.
So…something along the lines of David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, but with a gender-swapped lead? Color me interested.
The Sinner comes from writer Derek Simonds (The Astronaut Wives Club) and director Antonio Campo will be handling the pilot, with Biel also serving as an executive producer. Let’s hope this marks a long overdue return to the mainstream for Biel. Otherwise, we’ll always have Blue Powder.
(Via Deadline)
