Barrymore, Bell and Krasinski swim with 'Whales'

By Sarah Sluis

Call it Ace in the Hole meets The Cove. Kristen Bell has signed on to Whales, starring alongside Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski. The screenplay is based on a book about a 1988 global effort to save three whales trapped in Arctic ice. While normally, these whales would die, over $5 million in journalism coverage

eventually prompted the Soviet Union to send two icebreakers to free the whales--all during the Cold War. Because in Alaska, as Sarah Palin says, you can see Russia from your backyard.

Entitled Freeing the Whales: How the Media Created the World's Greatest Non-Event, the source material sounds cynical--thus my Ace in the Hole reference--but reviews say the book, at least, is more sincere. The Hollywood version will undoubtedly go the sincere route as well.

Barrymore will play a Greenpeace activist (of course) and Krasinski a small-town news reporter. Bell will round out the cast, playing an up-and-coming television reporter who thinks her looks are her only asset. The setting for the movie is a little offbeat, and the historical event fairly remote, but this could end up working in the movie's favor. I predict that Barrymore and Krasinski will be each other's love interest, with Bell as the "other woman" that Barrymore mistakenly thinks has gone too far with Krasinski--but it will all be a misunderstanding. Also, they'll save some whales!

The director, Ken Kwapis, last directed Barrymore in He's Just Not That Into You, and has directed Krasinski in "The Office." His directing credits (License to Wed, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) don't really reveal a personal style. But if there are whale scenes, he'll be ready: after all, he had to direct an orangutan in Dunston Checks In.

If this is a romantic comedy, I give it points for setting the action against an event that will actually be interesting and have real stakes involved. Bonus points if Barrymore goes a little hippie in her role as a Greenpeace activist.