Sophie Thatcher has joined Jennifer Kent's The Girl Who Was Plugged In, and the fact that this casting announcement is newsworthy tells you everything about how rare patient filmmaking has become.
Kent's last film was The Nightingale in 2018. Before that, The Babadook in 2014. That's three films in twelve years, which by contemporary standards makes her practically inactive. James Wan directs a movie every eighteen months. Jordan Peele has made four films since The Babadook. Ari Aster has three features and multiple shorts in the same timespan.
But Kent doesn't operate on industry timelines. She makes films when she has something to say and the means to say it properly. The Babadook is one of the defining horror films of the 2010s, a devastating exploration of grief and motherhood disguised as a monster movie. The Nightingale is a brutal historical revenge thriller set in colonial Tasmania that pulled no punches about sexual violence and genocide. Both films are uncompromising, difficult, and brilliant.
The Girl Who Was Plugged In adapts a James Tiptree Jr. science fiction story from 1973 about identity, beauty standards, and corporate exploitation. It's been in development for years, with Kent writing and directing. Thatcher—best known for Yellowjackets and The Boogeyman—brings the kind of intensity and emotional rawness that Kent's films demand.
What's remarkable is that Hollywood still gives Kent the space to work at her own pace. Most directors who go eight years between projects get forgotten. But Kent has accumulated enough critical capital that when she announces a new film, people pay attention. , , and the prestige independents know she delivers.
