Evil Genius: Arquette, Harbour Tackle Pizza Bomber at TIFF — SkimNews
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- Evil Genius, directed by Courteney Cox and adapted by screenwriter Courtenay Miles from the 2018 Netflix docuseries, premiered at TIFF as part of Gala Presentations with a 94-minute runtime.
- The film dramatizes the 2003 "pizza bomber" heist orchestrated by Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong (Patricia Arquette), in which Brian Wells (Tom McCarthy) was kidnapped, forced to rob a PNC bank with a bomb strapped around his neck, and died in a police standoff.
- The narrative centers on Marjorie's toxic years-long romance with co-conspirator Bill Rothstein (David Harbour), with the film establishing their dysfunctional dynamic immediately rather than through lengthy character exposition.
- Harbour appears nearly unrecognizable in a prosthetic nose and fake beard, while Arquette is "an onscreen force" as the manipulative spitfire Marjorie.
- Supporting players include Michael Chernus, Garret Dillahunt, Danielle Macdonald, and Owen Teague, plus David Arquette and Christine Taylor as bank employees bewildered by the masterminds' over-complicated pre-written instructions.
- The film marks Cox's return to directing more than a decade after her debut, with cameos from Courteney Cox's daughter and Patricia Arquette's daughter — former sisters-in-law — and international sales handled by Cornerstone Films.
Why it matters: Cox returns to directing over a decade after her debut with a TIFF Gala entry packaged for international sales by Cornerstone Films, pairing Arquette and Harbour as leads in a true-crime property Netflix already validated with its 2018 docuseries.
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