Academy Award winner Shirley MacLaine and Amanda Seyfried team up in the critically acclaimed The Last Word.
Directed by Mark Pellington, whose most notable credits include Arlington Road (1999), The Mothman Prophecies (2002), and Henry Poole (2008), from a screenplay by Stuart Ross Fink, The Last Word was screened at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival in January and it marks the very first collaboration between MacLaine and Seyfried.
The movie is centered on Harriet Lauler (MacLaine) – a retired and very controlling businesswoman who hires young writer Anne Sherman (Seyfried), in her desire to write her own obituary to ensure that her life story is told her way. As the two women start collaborating on Lauler’s “life”, the old woman starts to mentor a nine-year-old girl named Brenda (Annjewel Lee Dixon) who ends up accompanying her in pursuing a career as a disc jockey. As Lauler’s project takes place, the film comes to a heartwarming conclusion, with the characters discovering more about Lauler and themselves on a deeper level than what they originally anticipated.
The Last Word is MacLaine’s first full-length feature film this year. An iconic and legendary Hollywood actress, she is a six-time Academy Award nominee whose awe-inspiring career spans almost seven decades. Seyfried, on the other hand, is one of the most accomplished young actresses in Hollywood today whose most memorable works include Mean Girls (2004), Mamma Mia! (2008), and Les Miserables (2012).
As a Hollywood newbie, Dixon’s role as the “tough intern” of Lauler is undoubtedly her most challenging role to date.
Pellington seamlessly weaves the individual stories of three generations of women into a cohesive plot centered on hope and empowerment.
Celebrate the miracle of life and be part of the beautiful journey of Harriet, Anne, and Brenda, and be enlightened with the fact that it is never too late to make things right in living a life that no one will ever forget.
The Last Word is showing in cinemas nationwide on March 22.