Jessica Alba will star in and produce The Fun Lady, a comedy based on the true story of Linda Brewer, who reinvented herself in a small Arkansas town by selling sex toys, with director Andy Tennant (Sweet Home Alabama, Hitch) set to start production in early 2027, The Hollywood Reporter reports.
Alba is also producing the film.
The story is based on Brewer, then 59, who was profiled in a 2004 New York Times Magazine piece titled "Everything a Happily Married Bible Belt Woman Always Wanted to Know About Sex but Was Afraid to Ask." The Reporter says she rose from Arkansas high school dropout to a top seller for Passion Parties, a California-based company whose products included edible lotions, sex manuals, erotic games, lingerie and an array of vibrators. Her sales reached up to $140,000 in a single year, the outlet reports.
Alba plays Mora, a golden girl who retreats to her parents' small Arkansas hometown when her picture-perfect life falls apart. Jobs are scarce and gossip is a way of life, so she starts selling sex toys, despite never having experienced an orgasm herself. Mora becomes "The Lady," crashing living rooms, shocking church ladies and turning awkward sales parties into the hottest invitation in town.
Tennant told The Reporter he hadn't expected the pitch to be real. "I thought, 'You got to be kidding me!'" he said. He says the script grapples with "human sexuality but relationships and the suppression of female sexual identity," and he stresses it isn't "comedy with a capital C." Casting mattered for that reason. "We needed somebody who really got the material and understood that it wasn't going to be a comedy with a bunch of cheap laughs," he said.
Mark Steilen wrote the script. Brewer has died, she was reportedly involved "quite a lot" with Steilen during the writing process. "I know that her children are still very much wanting to see this movie made," Tennant said.
Tennant says the film widens the lens beyond one saleswoman. "We've tried to expand on the many women and the passion parties — no two are alike," he said. "It doesn't matter if it's 1988 or 2000 or 2027. Sometimes, it's hard to say what you want, say what you need, and it definitely affects your relationship."
His hope for audiences is modest and a little cheeky. "If you laugh, you laugh," he said. "But maybe you'll leave the theater thinking a little bit more about your relationship."