According to Deadline, Freckle Films will team up with director Jude Weng and Endeavor Content to adapt Jessamine Chan’s forthcoming debut novel for the small screen.
The dystopian drama follows the story of Frida Liu, a young mother, who due to one poor judgment, is forced by government officials into a Big Brother-like reform institution for mothers. Should she fail to show that she can be redeemed Frida will lose custody of her daughter.
Chastain, Weng, Chan, and Kelly Carmichael will executive produce the scripted series.
The School For Good Mothers is Jessamine Chan's debut novel. Her short stories have appeared in Tin House and Epoch, and she is a former reviews editor at Publishers Weekly.
The Taiwanese-born American director and writer Jude Weng made her feature film debut Finding Ohana via Netflix last year. She has helmed more than 50 episodes of television.
Jessica Chastain will star in the action spy thriller - The 355, which is based on an original idea by Chastain. The actress recently starred in the biopic drama film The Eyes of Tammy Faye and the limited drama series Scenes from a Marriage.
The official book synopsis reads:
“Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. She can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with Harriet, their cherubic daughter, does Frida finally attain the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she is just enough.
Until Frida has a very bad day.
The state has its eyes on mothers like Frida. The ones who check their phones, letting their children get injured on the playground; who let their children walk home alone. Because of one moment of poor judgment, a host of government officials will now determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion.
Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that a bad mother can be redeemed. That she can learn to be good.
A searing page-turner that is also a transgressive novel of ideas about the perils of ‘perfect’ upper-middle-class parenting; the violence enacted upon women by both the state and, at times, one another; the systems that separate families; and the boundlessness of love, The School for Good Mothers introduces, in Frida, an everywoman for the ages.”
