Update: Elizabeth Chomko’s “What They Had”

The 2015 Nicholl Fellowship winning script gets a green light.

Big news for actor, writer, and now director Elizabeth Chomko. From THR:

Hilary Swank, Michael Shannon and Robert Forster are set to star in What They Had, a drama from writer-director Elizabeth Chomko.

Blythe Danner and Taissa Farmiga are also part of the film’s ensemble cast.

The story is centers on a woman (Swank) who must fly back to her hometown when her Alzheimer’s-stricken mother, played by Danner, wanders into a blizzard. The return home forces her to confront her past.

Chomko is an actress and playwright making her screen directorial debut with What They Had. Her script for the film was a recipient Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences’ Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting.

“What They Had” is a superb script, a finely detailed drama, small in scope, big in humanity. You may read my extensive June 2016 interview with Elizabeth here in which do a deep dive into the story.

The project begins production here in Chicago on March 22nd.

Congratulations, Elizabeth, and good luck!