Two ’80’s icons (and celebrated movie outcasts) are set to appear in a Lifetime pilot together. Word is, Ally Sheedy will join Eric Stoltz in the upcoming Lifetime pilot Modern Love, which is created and written by Sex and the City writer Jenny Bicks.
As a child of the ’80’s, I will always hold a special place in my heart for Ally Sheedy and Eric Stoltz, both of whom played social underdogs in two of the best John Hughes written movies of the decade (The Breakfast Club and Some Kind of Wonderful). Sure, Ally Sheedy's Allison Reynolds had a dry scalp and seemed to go out of her way to be the weird girl, and Eric Stoltz' Keith was perpetually covered in oil paint and motor oil from juggling his art hobby and his job as a mechanic, but both were well deserving of their happy endings.
Modern Love is a Lifetime TV pilot penned by Jenny Bicks, who knows a little something about modern day romance, with writing credits including Sex and the City and Men in Trees. She’s also written for Showtime’s excellent drama The Big C. According to Deadline, Modern Love follows Stoltz’ character Simon McElvane, a newspaper science editor who’s tasked to write the paper’s “Modern Love” column, which results in him learning that he has a lot to learn about love. Sheedy plays the assistant managing editor. She’s described as “ballsy” and “no-nonsense.”
In other casting news, South Korean actor Samantha Futerman has also been cast in Modern Love, playing Simon McElvane’s adopted teen daughter. Futerman’s appeared in Memoirs of a Geisha, Across the Universe, and one of my favorite rom-coms from recent years, Going the Distance..
The premise of the pilot doesn’t strike me as all that original, but it should work well for a Lifetime show, should it go to series, and between the cast and Bicks’ involvement, I expect this one to be a cut above the rest.
