Clive Owen will soon have to dust off the dispirited trudge that he employed in Children Of Men for another thriller about a future where everything sucks. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Owen will star in Anon, written and directed by Andrew Niccol (writer of The Truman Show and writer/director of Gattaca), about a detective in a society with no privacy or anonymity, which sounds like a really easy job in a really shitty world. When Owen’s character stumbles upon a young woman who, according to records, doesn’t exist, he realizes total transparency isn’t the end of crime that some people believe it is.
Producers Oliver Simon and Daniel Baur said, “Andrew is a master storyteller whose work is always compelling, entertaining, and exhilarating as well as having something to say.” Let’s hope Niccol can say it without the maudlin voiceover that plagued Gattaca and instead will use more inventive means of exposition, like the picture-in-picture, behind-the-scenes vignette employed in The Truman Show. Or a weary Owen could clarify the state of the world by simply complaining about it, because, let’s be honest, he usually sells it.