Casting the Jaycee Dugard Movie

The plight of Jaycee Dugard is a tale wrought with thrills! drama! terror! suspense! terror! bravery! oh, the terror! Have a casual glimpse at the classy way newsfolks are handling the fact that she just went public with her story to People today and you'll see a level of wantonness that makes at least the obligatory Lifetime telefilm inevitable.

For the uninitiated (up until this morning, that also included me), Dugard was abducted at age 11 and held in captivity for 18 years by some terrible mutant that probably should’ve stayed down with the sewer rats and alligators. That makes her 29 now, and age which incidentally happens to fall near the end of that range where most movie producers deem women are allowed to be central protagonists in films. Because JonBenét Ramsey can never come of age for meticulous auteurs like Jerry Bruckheimer or Joel Schumacher, Jaycee Dugard will have to do. Hopefully she’ll option the rights to her life story now, while interest is sky-high. But in the meanwhile, here are critical casting suggestions for the surefire hit Ages In the Dark: The Jaycee Dugard Story.

Setting: A sleepy California, ideally. But to make it TV or box office-friendly, why not just relocate the entire story to Orange County or Newport? Everything’s juicier with wealth.

Jaycee Dugard: It really depends on whether you want Child Jaycee or Adult Jaycee to be at the center of the storyline. If the story is about how Child Jaycee escapes from the Jafar-esque clutches of her captor, Dakota Fanning’s younger sister may work. You know who won’t though? Lindsay Lohan’s younger sister. She’s already slightly busted-looking. If we’re placing most of the emphasis on how Adult Jaycee exacts government-sanctioned revenge on her captor, then someone sweet-faced like Anne Hathaway or a current Hollywood hot commodity like Kristen Stewart, whose lip-biting talents will come in handy for many necessary scenes of pouting. Add a prosthetic nose and a de-glamorizing attempt á la Charlize Theron and they may have themselves an Oscar.

Phillip & Nancy Garrido: There are a few fantastic ways the resourceful helmer of this flick can cast the villains. One solution would be to render them as shadows who instead of speaking, communicate thoughts through unnerving screeches. This would coat the film a positively Lynchian flavor. Another solution entails enlisting Harry Hamlin and Lisa Rinna. Mostly because Hamlin can pull off that creepy-sexy vibe which is always a hit with the older part of the women 18-35 demographic the film will be targeting.

Jaycee’s mother: This character is only pivotal if we’re pursuing the Child Jaycee plotline. In which case, obvious choices include Meryl Streep, Anjelica Huston, and even Jessica Lange. Left-field choices should not exclude recently-relevant Lydia Lunch or Molly Ringwald.

Jaycee’s boyfriend: And if we’re focusing on Adult Jaycee’s quest for vengeance, she will need some sort of boyfriend figure for obligatory scenes of pillow talk where her boyfriend, “No, no sweetie you’re doing the right thing,” when Adult Jaycee hesitates about wanting testifying against the Garridos. And then some truly adult situations follow. This scene would require the most minimal ‘acting.” So chick flick favorite Eddie Cibrian works best here. Other options: Any of the Mcs off Grey’s Anatomy, Chace Crawford.

Soundtrack: Unless the music people are just going to go with the saddest lot of Top 40 tunes they can round up, they can probably re-license the City of Angels soundtrack.