Everything looked spectacular for Mira Sorvino in 1996. She’d just won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in Woody Allen’s “Mighty Aphrodite”, she was beautiful, and a slew of high-profile offers soon followed. Unfortunately, the majority of those projects were considered commercial flops on release, and her star quickly faded from view.
Nevertheless, while her time as an A-lister proved woefully brief, Sorvino has continued working steadily in independent projects, despite the fact that you’ve probably never heard of most of them. (“Attack on Leningrad”, anyone? “Like Dandelion Dust”?)
Her next film, entitled “The Class Project”, will see the actress starring as the alcoholic mother of two murderous teenage girls, played by Abigail Breslin (“Little Miss Sunshine”) and Georgie Henley (“The Chronicles of Narnia”). The film is based on the 2008 true crime book “The Class Project: How to Kill a Mother”, written by Toronto Star reporter Bob Mitchell, which details the case of two sisters who plotted to kill their boozehound mother for insurance money.
The film will serve as the feature-directing debut of Stan Brooks, a prolific producer of made-for-TV movies including the Emmy-nominated “Prayers for Bobby”.
Sorvino’s last film, the independent drama “Union Square”, premiered at this year’s Toronto Film Festival. It was directed by Nancy Savoca and co-starred Tammy Blanchard and Patti Lupone.