

He insists on accepting sole accountability for the person he has been and the person he may become, which he feels runs counter to his counselor's recipes for recovery. James refuses to consider himself a victim of anything but his own bad decisions.

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To James, their friendship and advice seem stronger and truer than the clinic's droning dogma of How to Recover. Inside the clinic, he is surrounded by patients as troubled as he: a judge, a mobster, a former world-champion boxer, and a fragile former prostitute. She adds: “It’s the first time I felt my true voice coming through.By the time James Frey enters a drug and alcohol treatment facility, he has so thoroughly ravaged his body that the doctors are shocked he is still alive. “It gave me the encouragement, strength and confidence to do this under my complete control, in a way I can feel like it’s truly my vision.” You learn more from difficult experiences than the easy rides,” says Taylor-Johnson. Everything I learned from that, I brought to the table for this. “I certainly learned a hell of a lot from it. Despite the film’s success, Taylor-Johnson says she received no offers to direct afterward. Taylor-Johnson clashed with James, who was given more power on the film than screenwriters are typically afforded. Taylor-Johnson’s “Fifty Shades” grossed $571 million worldwide and some critics praised Taylor-Johnson’s direction while reserving their harshest words for the dialogue by author-screenwriter E.

Despite exaggerations - like that Frey spent months in jail when he only spent hours - the book ultimately sold millions and still remains on Winfrey’s website as part of her book club.įrey attended the film’s premiere in Toronto, as did “Fifty Shades” actor Jamie Dornan. His “A Million Little Pieces” kept selling, too, racking up 1,000 copies per week in the year following his admissions. It’s fiction but not far-fetched: “Katerina” is about a writer who has a fall from grace. His new novel, “Katerina,” was published Tuesday. “It’s a story based on that story.”įrey has kept on writing. You have 90 minutes to condense a 500-and-whatever page book, so characters have got lost by the wayside and some characters are three in one,” she says. IndieWire’s David Ehrlich wrote: “A James Frey biopic that ends when he gets out of treatment is sort of like a Milli Vanilli biopic that ends when they win the Grammy for Best New Artist.”īut Taylor-Johnson believes her “A Million Little Pieces” is its own work. (It opens with Frey awaking on a flight to Chicago with no memory of how he got there.) Critics in Toronto largely found the film a conventional addiction drama, and some were perplexed as to why Taylor-Johnson chose to not address the scandal at all. Taylor-Johnson was drawn to the book’s vividness. Re-reading it, the story hadn’t diminished in any way,” she says. “It felt exciting to breathe life into something that felt like it should have its day in the sun. It is, Taylor-Johnson says, a passion project. After raising the money, she shot it in 20 days. Taylor-Johnson’s production was far from such a heavyweight operation as was first planned.
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But following Frey’s disgrace, the movie rights were returned to the author. initially won the rights in a bidding war, with Brad Pitt’s Plan B to produce. She and Aaron wrote the script on spec (without financing or producers lined up) and Frey granted them the film rights. That it got this far is purely because of Taylor-Johnson’s dedication to it. “A Million Little Pieces” made its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival where it’s seeking distribution. That’s the thing that I hold true: James’ sobriety from where he began to where he is now.” “It’s his journey, from where he is now however many years later, having been through the ringer in so many different ways. “It was really storytelling,” the 51-year-old British director said in an interview. But for Taylor-Johnson, who helmed the adaptation of another best seller (“Fifty Shades of Grey”), there was still truth in “A Million Little Pieces.”
