Angelina Jolie has been pretty quiet for a few months now. She ended up not getting SAG or Oscar-nominated for her role in Pablo Larrain’s Maria, but Maria still changed her career. I think that film made Jolie remember how much she liked to work as an actress. Thank God! I’ve been wanting her to go back to acting in a bigger way for years, although I know she needed some time off to be with her kids. But the kids are almost all grown (Knox and Vivienne turn 17 this summer!) and Angelina has more freedom to take some acting gigs. In late 2024, Jolie was in Paris, filming Stitches, a role she took after promoting Maria. And now Jolie has signed onto another movie- an adaptation of a popular Scandi novel called Anxious People.

Oscar winner Angelina Jolie is set to star in the feature adaptation of hit Scandi novel Anxious People for A Man Called Otto and World War Z director Marc Forster.

Based on A Man Called Ove author Fredrik Backman’s novel, the film is being launched ahead of the Cannes market by Black Bear and Hope Studios with the former handling international sales and WME Independent handling domestic.

The uplifting comedy, set on the day before Christmas Eve, sees investment banker Zara (Jolie) begrudgingly find herself mingling with a group of strangers at an open house. When a reluctant bank robber inadvertently takes the group hostage, chaos and oversharing ensues, secrets are revealed and literally nothing goes according to plan. The movie is described as being “about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined…Through an ingeniously constructed story, Anxious People explores the enduring power of friendship, forgiveness, and hope — the things that save us, even in the most anxious times.”

The story has been adapted for the screen by Oscar-nominated screenwriter David Magee, known for movies including A Man Called Otto, Life of Pi, and Finding Neverland.

[From Deadline]

I haven’t read the book, but I read the summary and it sounds like an interesting role for Angelina, and like it will be a pretty great ensemble. Something lighter, a chance to flex her comedic muscles, maybe. Which reminds me that Jolie’s silly turn in 2002’s Life or Something Like It is now a huge hit on Netflix. The youths love that dumb little movie. Angelina is funny in it – back in those days, she occasionally took some lighter roles, and I would love to see her do more of that.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.