Film

Lay the Favourite (2012)

Director: Stephen Frears

Synopsis

British director Stephen Frears (‘The Queen’, ‘Tamara Drewe’) decamped to New Orleans from May to July 2011 to shoot an adaptation of Beth Raymer’s gambling memoir ‘Lay the Favourite: A Memoir of Gambling’. This upscale comedy has been adapted by D V DeVincentis, who also wrote ‘Grosse Pointe Blank’ and ‘High Fidelity’, the latter of which Frears directed back in 2000. The cast is impressive, showing how well-regarded Frears remains in Hollywood. Bruce Willis heads the pack as Dink Heimowitz, one of several men who believe they’ve found a way to beat the bookie, while Catherine Zeta-Jones is Heimowitz’s wife. The credits also feature Rebecca Hall, who plays a version of Raymer, the original book’s author. Here, she is Heimowitz’s assistant, only problems ensue when she gets mixed up with him romantically as well as professionally.

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