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RESERVATION ROAD
Directed by Terry George
Written by Terry George
Based on a novel by John Burnham Schwartz

Release date: November 9 2007 (USA)
Filming Locations: Stamford, Connecticut, USA.
Elle Plays: Emma Learner
Co-Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Jennifer Connelly, Mira Sorvino, Mark Ruffalo, Antoni Corone, Sean Curley.

-->Synopsis
At the close of a beautiful summer day near the quiet Connecticut town where they live, the Learner family -- Ethan and Grace, their children, Josh and Emma -- stop at a gas station on their way home from a concert. Josh Learner, lost in a 10-year-old's private world, is standing at the edge of the road when a car comes racing around the bend. He is hit and instantly killed. The car speeds away.

From this moment forward, the story becomes a harrowing countdown to the confrontation between two very different men. The hit-and-run driver is a small-town lawyer named Dwight Arno, a man in desperate need of a second chance. Dwight is also the father of a ten-year-old boy, who was asleep in the car the night Josh Learner was killed. Now Dwight must decide whether to run from his crime or to pay the price for what he did. Ethan Learner, a respected professor of literature at a small New England college, has seen his orderly world shattered in a single moment, yet persists in the belief that he can find the unknown man who killed his son. Behind their stories are those of eight-year-old Emma, who can't stop thinking her brother's death was her fault, and of Grace, who must find the strength to keep herself and her family together, and to be the mother Emma so badly needs.

-->Who Elle Plays
She plays the role of Emma Learner, the only daughter in this grief stricken family. After the tragic death of her brother, Emma blames herself. As her parents struggle to cope, she has to turns inwards for support, and her father sees an invisible partition creep up between them. Emma has a stuffed toy giraffe called Twigs. Along with the family dog Sallie, Twigs becomes Emma's most trusted friend after the death of her brother. Emma learns the piano, and in one pivotal scene, performs an etude by Chopin.

-->Notable Quotables
. "She was just eight years old. I knew everything about her, and nothing. After her tears were done, I asked her if she wanted to go home. But she said she was okay. She insisted on going to camp. She was stubborn. Nothing more was said, nothing explained." - Ethan Learner.
. "She took her place, small before the piano, white to its black, red-shoed feet floating above the pedals. She leaned forward over the keys and stared down at her hands, as if it were all up to them. Then she began to play..."

-->Filming Facts
. Filming began in early October 2006 and continued through until early November. The funeral scene, in which Emma's brother Josh is buried, was shot on October 23. The scene in which he is hit by a car was filmed on October 3.
. Elle and her co-stars were photographed by the media and the public numerous times during the location shoots.
. In the book, Dwight's ten year old son is named Sam. However in the movie his name has been changed to Lucas.

-->Links
Reservation Road at IMDB.com
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