A romantic comedy with two charismatic leads can almost guarantee a good time at the movies any day. But if you add a pet going through depression to the story, the project turns into something that can’t be missed. Deadline reports that Zooey Deschanel will star in Merv, an upcoming film from Amazon MGM Studios. The movie follows a couple who can’t stop seeing each other after their breakup when they realize that the dog they share is severely emotionally affected by their separation. As they take their pet on a vacation in Florida to make it feel better, the couple realize that their love story might not be over yet.
Linsey Stewart and Dane Clark wrote the screenplay for the upcoming project starring Deschanel, with the Dreamin’ Wild star’s character taking a second look at her ex-partner thanks to her dog. Time will tell if the couple will get back together, or if the Florida trip will make things worse for everyone involved. Rom-coms are currently having a cultural moment, as recently proven when Anyone But You became a box office hit, and hopefully things will bode well for Merv as well.
When she wrote and directed Summerland, Jessica Swale proved that she was capable of tackling love stories with a lot of empathy, making her characters explore their feelings for one another in unexpected ways. And now, the filmmaker has been tasked with helming Merv, bringing the screenplay written by Stewart and Clark from the page to the screen. The director also worked on a couple of episodes of Ten Percent, the Prime Video series about a group of agents trying to keep their clients happy after the death of the company’s founder.
Zooey Deschanel might be very popular for portraying Jess on New Girl over the course of seven seasons, but before she spent years hanging out with Nick (Jake Johnson) and Schmidt (Max Greenfield), the actress delivered one of her best performances in another romantic comedy. Deschanel played the titular character in (500) Days of Summer, Marc Webb‘s 2009 story about Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) misinterpreting what the woman he was in love with actually felt for him. Fifteen years after the release of that movie, Deschanel is back to tackle a very different romantic comedy in Merv, as the fate of a couple could be determined by their dog’s emotional state.
There is currently no release date for Merv. In the meantime, catch Deschanel in New Girl, streaming now on Hulu in the U.S.
via Collider