Jennifer Lawrence Will Become A 'Mob Girl' For 'The Young Pope' Director

The criminal underworld of the mafia has always been dominated by men. You need only look at the likes of The Godfather, Goodfellas, The Sopranos and countless other mob movies and TV shows to see that. But as actresses start getting more significant leading roles in Hollywood, we're starting to see women taking part in crime, and soon the true story of one woman who worked for the mob will be told on the big screen.

Mob Girl is a new film in the works from The Young Pope director Paolo Sorrentino that will adapt the life story of Arlyne Brickman, a woman who became a "mob girlfriend" but then ended up getting in on the criminal action herself. And Jennifer Lawrence has been slated to star in the movie and produce it.The Hollywood Reporter has news on the Mob Girl movie that is in the works with The Americans and Halt and Catch Fire writer/producer Angelina Burnett writing the script for Paolo Sorrentino. Justine Polsky will produce alongside Jennifer Lawrence through their Excellent Cadaver production banner, along with Sorrentino and Lorenzo Mieli. Makeready, a content studio founded by Brad Weston, is behind the movie too.

Here's the official synopsis for the book of the same name by Teresa Carpenter from Amazon:

Growing up among racketeers on the Lower East Side of New York City, Arlyne Brickman associated with mobsters. Drawn to the glamorous and flashy lifestyle, she was soon dating "wiseguys" and running errands for them; but after years as a mob girlfriend, Arlyne began to get in on the action herself—eventually becoming a police informant and major witness in the government's case against the Colombo crime family.

It sounds like getting a slice of the action ended up being too much for Brickman since she turned police informant, but even some of the most famous true stories of mobsters feature that level of betrayal. That's because there's no usually getting out of the mob that doesn't involve going to the police or going in the ground. This doesn't exactly sound like the most original story, but Weston explained his motivation for wanting to tell it on the big screen:

"Seeing this story from a woman's point of view is a fresh and exciting approach to telling a classic mob story."

Indeed, between this and The Kitchen, it would appear that female roles in crime dramas are starting to getting bigger and grittier. And it's about time women were able to do something more in those kind of movies instead of being relegated to the crying, frantic wife who just wants their criminal husbands to stop.

Making this project even more intriguing is that Jennifer Lawrence's career has taken a more twisted turn since her days in The Hunger Games. First, she starred in the strange, psychological thriller mother! for Darren Aronofksy, and last year she took quite the dark turn as a Russian spy in Red Sparrow. Right now she's shooting a soldier drama for A24 from first-time filmmaker Lila Neugebauer, another project that she is producing through her own banner. Otherwise, with the exception of finishing her X-Men run in this year's Dark Phoenix, Lawrence has laid pretty low. So we're interested in seeing what she's been cooking up as a star and producer.