Who Plays Who?

Renée Zellweger Jodelle Ferland Ian McShane Kerry O'Malley Callum Keith Rennie Bradley Cooper Adrian Lester Georgia Craig Cynthia Stevenson Tiffany Knight Cindy Sungu Philip Cabrita Domenico D'Ambrosio David Patrick Green

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Emily Lillith Detective Barron Margaret Edward Douglas J Ames Wayne Denise Nancy Darla Mia Javier Ramirez Plainclothes Cop Chief Psychiatrist

What Do The Critics Say

"A deftly made horror thriller with plenty of scares, Case 39 may be predictable and somewhat heavy handed, but it ticks all the boxes for the genre. Christian Alvart’s excellent direction keeps the barrage of shocking events contained, while Renée Zellweger grounds the action with a credible and likeable central performance. There are sudden noises, creepy music, unexplained occurrences and deaths. Grisly deaths. It’s a bit like letting a dog off the leash, the way Alvart slowly sucks us in before opening Pandora’s Box. Zellweger is as good as she has ever been here and Ferland is suitably sweet with a deadly coating." Louise Keller URBAN CINEFILE "Case 39 reworks the familiar horror territory, loading such normal joys as family, parenthood, and childhood with extreme malice. Director Christian Alvart all but embalms Renée Zellweger's habitual good cheer in a million cliches as the film explores, in effect, what kind of mental illness might lead someone to kill a child. The film makes a dutiful nod at the over abundance of child abuse cases which occur in even the most affluent countries." Ruth Hessey MOVIETIME ABC

"The performances are all solid, even if the characters go a little too quickly from sceptics to believers in Lilith's evil tendencies. There are a few creepy moments, a few disturbing moments (that oven comes to mind) and a handful of good frights." Francesca Rudkin NZ HERALD "It’s taken two years for Paramount to finally give Case 39 a release date. Zellweger’s return to horror is a welcomed one; she’s suits the character of Emily well and makes for a likeable protagonist, which is all too rare in the genre. Jodelle Ferland does a memorable job as the creepy-child, particularly showcasing her menace during one great scene where she shifts from lil’ cutey to demon-child during a psychological assessment. The good news is that Case 39, by comparison to "Orphan", is a great film." Anders Wotzke CUTPRINT REVIEWS

The Inside Story From "The Omen" to "The Exorcist", from "Rosemary's Baby" to "The Demon Seed" and "Seed Of Chucky", from "The Others" to "The Orphanage", terror is often illustrated around families. Many of cinema’s most memorable horror stories have emerged from the tiny cracks in family relationships and the volatile emotions of anxiety, paranoia and uncertainty that hide within. Now comes a chilling story in which a woman, whose job is to save broken families, taking a leap to foster a young girl in desperate need. But Emily Jenkins is about to discover that becoming a parent overnight isn’t so easy. It’s a job that dredges up her deepest fears: fear of failure, fear of not understanding, and fear of completely losing control. Those fears are unnerving enough, but there is another kind of fear that Emily’s foster child Lillith unleashes into her life and the lives of those around her: a fear found only in the deepest, darkest, most forbidden corners of the subconscious imagination. It’s a fear so tenacious in its grip, it can be fatal. Academy Award ® winner Renee Zellweger ("Cold Mountain") takes on her first horror-thriller role with "Case 39", which also marks the American feature debut of gifted German director Christian Alvart. Alvart recently came to the fore in Europe with the innovative psychological thriller "Antibodies", the riveting tale of a serial killer whose malevolent state of mind just might be virally contagious to the police officer questioning him. Celebrated as engrossingly stylish and provocative, the film thrust Alvart into the limelight of today’s fastest rising new filmmakers. Alvart ("Pandorum") was planning to make a radical departure from horror-thrillers for his next film, but something changed his mind. Producer Kevin Misher ("Public Enemies") sent him Ray Wright’s edge of your seat screenplay for "Case 39", and he was hooked. "At the time, I was ready to break out of this corner of doing horror movies, but when I read "Case 39", it was so much fun, I just had to do it," Alvart explained. "It was such a great read. I went through the script in less time than the movie itself lasts. Some of the scenes that Ray wrote were so shocking; I loved that they succeeded in being surprising in new ways. He managed to take you completely out of your comfort zone, and that kind of extreme tension interests me." Alvart believes the heart of this story is "about being a parent and how you can’t really control the minds of your children. You can try, you can do your best, but you don’t ever have total control. And what happens when someone like Emily does all the right things, but it simply doesn’t work? What happens when someone does bad things despite all the attempts to guide them?" To Alvart, realism didn’t mean leaving his signature style behind. He uses intricately-constructed visual rhythms to build mystery and suspense layer by layer: to bone-chilling effect. "I like to have everything very tightly controlled in this kind of movie, so that every physical element: every prop, every color, every movement of the actors; work together to create a reality for the audience, a heightened reality that pulls them into places they didn’t know they would go." This approach galvanized producers Steve Golin and Kevin Misher. "Christian had a terrific sense of the material," says Misher. "When Steve Golin, Renee Zellweger and I first met with him, we all loved him. We loved his energy, his focus and his point of view. He had never made a film in English before, but his previous film "Antibodies" spoke volumes about his talent. He has a voracious appetite for suspense. And Christian came into the room already knowing exactly what he wanted right down to the camera angles." When casting, Alvart looked for those who had chemistry between them that would create mystery, emotion, and anxiety. "For the supernatural elements of "Case 39" to work, you really need to believe in these characters," he said. "I needed actors who could make these strange events feel emotionally quite believable, and who could connect on a deeper level with the audience. And that’s exactly what Renee Zellwegger, Jodelle Ferland, Ian McShane and the rest of the cast were able to do." The film is anchored by a bold performance from one of America’s leading screen actresses: three time Golden Globe winner, Renée Zellweger ("Nurse Betty", "Chicago" & "Cold Mountain") whose work has ranged from sweeping historic drama playing Ruby Thewes in "Cold Mountain" to the feisty fun of female prisoner Roxy Hart in "Chicago" to the iconic title role of the "Bridget Jones" series of hit comedies. Here, Zellweger dips into a raw portrait of a new foster mother driven to desperation as the little girl she thought she rescued brings mystery, fear, and chaos into her life. From the beginning, Alvart fought to cast a strong and serious actress in the role of Emily, knowing it would take both considerable skill and courage to make her situation believable. "I knew that the overall tone of this movie would really change depending on who the actress was," he states. "So, I didn’t want just the latest 'it girl', but an actress with real strength and maturity." Still, as a director who had never made a film in America before, he could not have expected to land one of Hollywood’s most popular, versatile and award-winning actresses. When Renee Zellweger became attached to the project, Alvart was in heaven. "Her performance absolutely grounds the movie," he says. "There’s so much gravitas and emotion to her portrait of Emily. It’s not just about being scared and running from fear, she also adds layers to who Emily is and what drives her. And as talented an actress as she is, she also was willing to do very primal things like run around barefoot in the rain for two days." Everyone involved in the project was excited to see Zellweger tackle the one cinematic genre in which the international star has yet to be seen." "Renee is obviously a multi-award-winning actress, but I think her vulnerability works especially well for this genre. You’ve never seen her play a role like this," says Misher ("Fighting"). "And it’s also a bit of a head-fake, because at first you think you’re watching a more conventional thriller and, before you know it, you’re inside a supernatural story that has a lot of shocks and fun to it." Zellweger was won over by the psychological sophistication of Ray Wright’s screenplay. "I stayed up all night finishing that script because I couldn’t put it down. It was so cleverly written, and what I really loved was that it was rich with subtext. It’s not just about a woman going through something eerie; it’s about a woman’s psychological deterioration. That’s also what makes it so much more frightening. It walks that fine line where you question if what is happening is real or if Emily is losing her mind. It’s a wonderful line to walk as an actress." The complex psychological makeup of Emily Jenkins intrigued Zellweger ("Shark Tale", "Bee Movie" & "Monsters vs Aliens"), who was drawn to her mix of moral decency and underlying emotional wounds from the past. "Emily is a very responsible, loving, charitable person who gets real joy out of helping these kids. That's why it’s so devastating to her when things with Lillith get more and more difficult. She starts to wonder if she’s simply not equipped to be a mother, or if something far more unusual is going on. It brings out all her fears." To gain a more intimate understanding of what real urban social workers deal with on a daily basis, Zellweger spent time at Los Angeles Child Protection Services, making the rounds with visits to troubled families. "I found it to be a very interesting job because it’s very much about understanding human nature, about seeing things that aren’t necessarily on the surface, about intuition. It’s also a huge responsibility." When casting Lillith, the filmmakers knew they needed a young actress who possessed unusual depth and skill. They needed someone who could portray a young girl capable of invoking both empathy and abject horror, an actor who could represent the dichotomy of childhood purity and unbridled evil. They looked for an actress who would be so believable in the role that she would shock audiences with her transformation between innocence and demonic fury. An extensive search led them to Jodelle Ferland, whose impressive resume includes the lead role in Terry Gilliam’s "Tideland", as well as the hit horror film "Silent Hill". An actress for as long as she can remember, Ferland won her first Emmy Award at the astonishing age of four. "I don’t know how many thousands of kids we looked at, but when we boiled it down, Jodelle was the perfect choice," Alvart notes. "I like doing scary movies," Ferland admitted. "It’s interesting to be a cute little girl and then suddenly become creepy, because that makes things even more scary. Lily is in some ways just an innocent little girl, but she can’t help but bring evil with her. The more people get to know her, the more weird things happen: very, very weird things." The thing that most thrilled Ferland about "Case 39" was the opportunity to work so closely with Renée Zellweger. "I really loved the Bridget Jones movies and I was just so excited to be able to work with her. She made it a lot of fun." Best known for his award winning role as the villainous Al Swearengen on HBO’s "Deadwood", Golden Globe winner Ian McShane plays a completely different character in "Case 39". He plays Mike Barron, a rough-edged Detective with a soft spot for Emily Jenkins and the troubled children she tries to save. "Ian McShane was the first person who popped into my mind for the role of the detective," Alvart recalls. "What really drew me was seeing Christian’s movie "Antibodies", which I thought was terrific," says McShane ("Death Race"). "It’s also a nice change to play a good guy. This is a very different role from any that I’ve done." Rising star Bradley Cooper was cast as Emily's boyfriend, child psychologist Doug Ames. "It’s not horrifically gory, but there is a lot of suspense. And, the chance to do a movie with Renee Zellweger and Christian Alvart, who I think is an auteur, was huge," says the star of "The Hangover" & "All About Steve". "And Jodelle is fantastic, so I knew I better show up with my 'A' game." Kerry O'Malley (TV'S "Brotherhood"), who plays Lillith's mother Margaret Sullivan, was full of praise for their young co-star. "She was a real trouper. She understood that it was meant to be scary, but also that it was just pretend, and that it’s what we do to tell stories." Zellweger was heartened by Alvart’s approach to this place where gritty domestic problems, authentic fear, and wild supernatural events collide. She notes that this helped her to dive fearlessly into the film’s extensive physical action. "From the first day on the set, as I became more familiar with Christian’s work, with his techniques, with his visual style, and his ability to do things so precisely, I felt that this was a major filmmaker in the beginning of his career. I can’t wait to see where he goes next. His enthusiasm for filmmaking is contagious." Synopsis

Devoted family services specialist Emily Jenkins has seen it all: lies, neglect, abuse, domestic horrors of every type. That is, until she takes on Case 39. A complaint has been made to Child Services that ten year old Lillith Sullivan is being mistreated by her mom and dad. Her followup visit to the Sullivan's home leaves Emily shaken. The parents behaviour is disturbing and secretive. When Lillith’s parents attempt to harm their only child in a late-night ritual, Emily, with the help of Detective Mike Barron, intervenes. Heartbroken by Lillith’s loneliness and innocence, Emily decides to do something she has never previously done: get personally involved. Hoping to do the right thing for the traumatized young girl, Emily puts forward a submission offering Lillith a caring, happy home until she can find an adoptive family. Emily gets her wish. Lillith is placed in her care. That’s when the real terror begins.

The Verdict "Critics say it's a return to a familiar genre, the film company says it's her first horror/thriller. What-ever you choose to believe, Renée Zellweger did appear in the 1994 terror/horror flick "The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre", as Renee Zellweger playing Jenny: and yes, she is cast as the star of the horror/thriller, "Case 39". The story doing the rounds is that "Case 39" has been sitting in storage for three years, which probably accounts for it appearing to be a little dated. For many, the real star of "Case 39" is young Canadian actress Jodelle Ferland. The 2008 Camie Award winner, (born October 9th 1994 in Nanaimo, British Columbia) gives a solid performance in the role of Lillith Sulivan conveying both the sweetness and terror stored within the child Emily decides to foster parent. Those who are fans of this genre will just get their monies worth (excellent value for cheap tuesday fans). There's a bundle of terrifying segments including one featuring an oven; a chilling night encounter; a terrifying moment in a lift and, a shape shifting demon. How you react to "Case 39" will depend on how 'into' the genre you are. Cast includes former "Alias" cast member Bradley Cooper (Will Tippin in 46 episodes between 2001 & 2006); Ian McShane (Teddy Bass in the brilliant "Sexy Beast") and Adrian Lester (Mickey Stone in TV'S "Hustle"). If you can block the memory of the many recent 'horror' flicks you'll find this is definately worth a look at. 3 STARS." The Production Team

Director Writer Producer Original Music Cinematography Film Editor Casting Production Designer Art Direction Set Decoration Costume Design

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Christian Alvart Ray Wright Kevin Misher Michl Britsch Hagen Bogdanski Mark Goldblatt Heike Brandstatter/Sarah Finn Randi Hiller/Coreen Mayrs John Willett Ross Dempster Andrea French Monique Prudhomme

Run Time 109 minutes Rated MA15+ [AUST] Copyright ©2009 - Paramount Pictures - All Rights Reserved ©1999-2009 All Rights Reserved The Movie Pages - Protected by Australian & International Copyright. Trademark Laws Apply.