Here’s everything we know about the My Year of Rest and Relaxation movie

The Ottessa Moshfegh novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation has been one of the most anticipated but secretive movie adaptions in recent times.

The New York Times bestseller cover’s coquettish and hyperfeminine vibe, exemplified by Jacques Louis David’s 1798 painting A Young Woman in White, has gotten big on TikTok. The book has more than 93.6 million views on the video-sharing platform and has celebrity fans like Suki Waterhouse.

It captures a similar ennui to something like Sofia Coppola’s 2006 film Marie Antoinette, which gave the doomed Queen of France a new perspective for the Paris Hilton generation.

Upon the book’s publication, Ottessa acknowledged the narrator being “a very angry person”, possibly capturing something in what other social media trends have tried to define as ‘feminine rage’ or just the mundanity of life, or the frustration of trying to do it all with a 9 to 5.

Building on this, it almost feels like a hit is in the bag; however, there has been little detail about the who, what, when, where, and who of bringing the literary sensation to the big screen.

Here is everything we know so far about the My Year of Relaxation movie. 

What is My Year of Rest and Relaxation about?

The book, which was published in 2018, follows an unnamed protagonist as she struggles with the vacuous and meaninglessness of her immensely privileged life living in New York City. Driven to the brink of exhaustion by working at a modern art gallery, she manages to get herself an easily manipulated psychiatrist to prescribe her enough films to sleep for a year, waking only to drink coffee and watch old films.

Who is producing My Year of Rest and Relaxation?

Margot Robbie purchased the rights for the novel back in 2019 via her and her husband Tom Ackerley’s production company LuckyChap Entertainment, who brought the two of the most discoursed movies of 2023 to life; Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn.

“We are thrilled to be adapting Ottessa’s incredibly rich and exhilarating novel as we continue to tell unique stories with women at the heart of them. To bring such a troubled, layered and original character to life that we feel audiences haven’t explored before is incredibly exciting. We look forward to collaborating closely with Chuck and the rest of his incredible team at Atlas Entertainment as we continue to grow and align ourselves with some of the best producers in the industry,” they said at the time.

Who is writing the screenplay and directing My Year of Rest and Relaxation?

Yorgos Lathimos, who has been attached to direct and write, has been very tight-lipped about his reported involvement with the film. However, while promoting his newest film, Poor Things, Yorgos revealed to Dazed magazine that he is, in fact, still working on it.

What has Ottessa Moshfegh said about the film?

Ottessa, who has also written Eileen and Lapvona, reassured fans of her book that the film version was coming while highlighting how difficult it was to give such an internal book the on-screen treatment.

“I have no idea about the timeline on that, but hopefully sometime,” she told IndieWire in November last year.

In June 2022, she echoed Yorgos’ coyness about the project, telling i-D magazine that “he would prefer I don’t speak about it”.

These comments came amid the film version of her 2015 novel Eileen, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 2023. The film – which has a screenplay written by Ottessa and her husband Luke Goebel – starred Anne Hathaway and Thomasin McKenzie. It centred on the pair establishing a relationship in the 60s Massachusetts. It was given a limited release in select theatres in December last year and received favourable reviews from critics.

Of writing the script, Ottessa admitted that she felt “spoiled” by the chance and gushed about how she would love to do a “million times more” while chatting to The Hollywood Reporter during its festival run.

What about the cast?

Woah, this question might be a bit premature. People have speculated that Margot bought the rights so she could star in it. However, no word about anything like that has followed. She would obviously do a stellar job as the nameless main character, who is obsessed with sleeping and Whoopi Goldberg movies. However, they could get an unknown to lead.

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Photo credit: Penguin/TikTok