page_title: The Lure (2015 film)
section_title: Writing
hierarchical_section_title: The Lure (2015 film) / Production / Writing
caption_attribution_description: English: One of a series of tiles painted around 1867 by Henry Holiday (1839-1927) illustrating the story of The Little Mermaid. Tiles produced by Minton Hollins and Co.. On display at The Higgins museum and gallery, Bedford.
context_page_description: The Lure is a 2015 Polish horror musical film directed by Agnieszka Smoczyńska. It tells of two mermaids who emerge from the waters and perform in a nightclub. One falls in love with a man, and gives up her tail, but loses her voice in the process. The story is a reworking of the 1837 fairy tale "The Little Mermaid" by Hans Christian Andersen, with inspiration from Smoczyńska's experiences. After a Polish premiere, the film screened at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and Fantasia Film Festival, to mixed reviews.
context_section_description: Director Agnieszka Smoczyńska called the film a "coming-of-age story", echoing her own youth. She recalled that her mother ran a nightclub, where she had her "first shot of vodka, first cigarette, first sexual disappointment and first important feeling for a boy." The mermaids were an abstraction that allowed her to tell her story without revealing too much of herself. The screenwriter Robert Bolesto sought to write a story based on two friends of his that frequented nightclubs in the 80s, which enthused Smoczyńska and resonated with her own childhood.
  Smoczyńska also wanted the film to be a retelling of The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen, and developed her idea of mermaids from tales of the 14th–16th century that described them as the sisters of dragons, and hence made them part monstrous. She invented their need to feed on human hearts and that propensity to attack the larynx of their victims.
caption: The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen influenced the story.
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