Gwyneth Paltrow will star in a film adaptation of Belle Burden’s Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage, Variety reports.
Burden’s memoir, published in January by Dial Press, is the account of the author’s divorce from her husband, who left her suddenly during the early days of the Covid-19 lockdown. A critic for Kirkus called the book “a measured, empathetic, and modern response to an enraging callousness.”
The memoir, which became a No. 1 New York Times bestseller, is an expansion of a Modern Love column that Burden wrote for the Times in 2023. “Almost three years later, I still have no understanding of why my husband left,” she wrote. “His strangeness only increased, becoming an adversary in the divorce process and, while kind with our children and occasionally in touch with me by text, more resolute in his desire not to share custody or daily parenting.”
Paltrow, the Oscar-winning actor known for her screen roles in Shakespeare in Love, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Marty Supreme, will star in the film and serve as executive producer. The screenplay will be written by Heidi Schreck, who has written for television series including Nurse Jackie, Billions, and I Love Dick. No director is attached to the adaptation yet.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
