Cormac McCarthy has finished and sold his script for The Counselor before finishing the novel, and I find the whole situation out of control. Sure, McCarthy has time to finish the novel before the film goes into production, but what if he doesn’t care? What if, by finishing the script, he has created a dead plot for himself that he now only fills in with scribbles and kittens?

On the other hand, how can this script not be the best script ever? From Deadline: “Since McCarthy himself wrote the script, we get his own muscular prose directly, with its sexual obsessions. It’s a masculine world into which, unusually, two women intrude to play leading roles. McCarthy’s wit and humor in the dialogue make the nightmare even scarier. This may be one of McCarthy’s most disturbing and powerful works.’”

Most disturbing and powerful? Muscular and masculine? Wit and humor make “the nightmare” scarier? How are my bodily fluids even contained right now?

In order to calm down just a little bit and try to find a little focus, I decided it might be nice to come up with a couple of casting ideas. Without even the slightest hint about what these female characters are like, I would like to suggest four women I think would be brilliant. My suggestions are based on who I think would survive in a Cormac McCarthy landscape. You know: can they hack an animal to death? Can they fashion tourniquets out of sheets? Can they kill a man with their silence?

Image: mubi.com

In the film Movern Callar, Samantha Morton played a woman who hacked up her dead boyfriend’s body in the bathtub while listening to the Velvet Underground. Movern Callar is not a horror film. Done.

Image: deadline.com

Because Carey Mulligan looks so damn sweet all the time, everyone thinks she’s child-like and needs protecting. So when she’s quiet for just a little too long, not smiling, there’s an intensity and depth that’s disturbing. Like Kelly Macdonald in No Country For Old Men, Carey Mulligan knows what the hell is going on.

Image: moviespad.com

Have you seen We Need to Talk About Kevin? Yes, it’s the worst title for a film ever, but Tilda Swinton rocks it as the kinda psycho cold-ass mother to the totally psycho wacked out kid. Tilda Swinton could skin babies alive. I don't doubt it for a second.

Image: tvguide.com

Years after the horrifying Requiem for a Dream, my adoration for Ellen Burstyn was renewed in her stunning portrayal of a harsh, clinically upsetting suburban matriarch in Another Happy Day. Have you seenAnother Happy Day? Get out your depression shoes and start walking down sad street. No one alive could kill Ellen Burstyn before Ellen Burstyn kills them with her contempt.

Cormac McCarthy image: twitchfilm.com