It’s been two years since we first learned that Anne Hathaway won the rights to Yesteryear, Caro Claire Burke’s runaway 2026 bestseller about a tradwife influencer who wakes up one day in the 19th century.

• Hathaway spoke about the adaptation for the first time at a recent film premiere, mainly expressing her love for the book and her excitement to make a film that does it justice. 

I was admittedly let down by the big reveal of Yesteryear, but I am forever interested in the project of adaptation. My interest is piqued by this film for the challenges this one poses, and I have some questions about the movie and how it’s gonna get made. 

🎬 What’s the casting situation? No casting announcements have been confirmed beyond Hathaway as Natalie, but Burke has done some light fancasting in interviews.

• She sees a lesser-known Jesse Plemons type for Caleb, and someone like Woody Harrelson playing his father, Doug. I see the Plemons vision, but I don’t know that Harrelson has the scary edge of a Doug for me. Maybe that’s because he’s Billy from White Men Can’t Jump in my mind (Hi, I’m middle-aged).
• The role of Old Caleb is the one I’m especially curious about. I saw some online fancasting of Michael Fassbender here, and I want to see it for you dreamers! But it’s hard to get from a Plemons type to Fassy on the vibe front.  

🧠 How will the film pull off this much interiority? Burke has said from the outset that the project will not be a beat-for-beat reimagining of her book, since two+ hours of a tradwife influencer’s inner monologue doth not an interesting film make. I’d also argue that’s also just not the point of an adaptation, but I digress.

• If we’re getting out of Natalie’s head, I would love for the film to go deeper or more cutting in its satire where the book went shallow.
• One of my major critiques of Yesteryear is that it had a lot to say about a lot of things, but never very deeply. Maybe some different POV will help give us more show and less tell.

🔚 What about that ending? Listen, I’ve seen The Odyssey. I know what cinematic magic is possible with some lighting, creative angles, and a dream (looking at you, Circe). But I truly do wonder how the reveal in this movie, and keeping up the overall conceit, is going to go.

• The ending is the sort of thing that barely worked for me as a reader, and what disbelief I could suspend comes down to the fact that the only visual I had was the one in my head.
• Keeping the twist under wraps on film is a whole different ball game. But hey, with a big enough budget, sky’s the limit.

🎧 Listen to our Patreon book club episode of Yesteryear on The Book Riot Podcast. —VD