Dee Rees is directing the adaptation of Alexis Schaitkin’s novel Saint X for Hulu. The eight-part, psychological drama comes from writer Leila Gerstein and Rees. It is told in multiple timelines and perspectives, explores and upends the girl-gone-missing genre.
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Saint X follows the disappearance of Alison Thomas, a young American woman who mysteriously vanishes while on a family vacation at a resort on the Caribbean island of Saint X. Several days later, Alison’s body is found in a remote spot on a nearby cay, and two local men–employees at the resort–are arrested. But the evidence is slim, the timeline against it, and the men are soon released. The story turns into national tabloid news, a lurid mystery that will go unsolved.
Years later, her sister Claire, who only seven years old at the time of the murder, encounters one of her sister’s suspected killers by chance, pushing her into investigating the truth of Alison’s untimely death. But the pursuit of truth may be a dangerous one, and involves digging into her sister’s past to discover the reality of the girl she didn’t get to know growing up.
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Schaitkin’s novel was published in 2020 and was called “hypnotic” by the New York Times Book Review.
ABC Signature is producing. Gerstein and Rees will executive produce Saint X with author Schaitkin, Stephen Williams, Anonymous Content and DreamCrew Entertainment.
The series is the latest literary adaptation for Hulu, which has found success with adapting books including The Handmaid’s Tale, Lindy West’s Shrill, Sally Rooney’s Normal People and Conversations With Friends and Liane Moriarty’s Nine Perfect Strangers.