Marion Cotillard in line for Diary of a Chambermaid

Marion Cotillard is in talks to play the lead in a forthcoming remake of the classic French tale Diary of a Chambermaid for director Benoit Jacquot, according to Variety.

Octave Mirbeau's 1900 novel, a critique of bourgeois France's fondness for domestic servants, has been the basis of two films, a 1946 English-language version by director Jean Renoir that starred Paulette Goddard and relocated the story to Hollywood, and a 1964 French-Italian production from Luis Buñuel that featured Jeanne Moreau in the lead.

Cotillard is in line to play Celestine, an ambitious young chambermaid who struggles to cope with the eccentricities and perversions of her wealthy yet appalling employers. First published in serial form at the time of the famous Alfred Dreyfus affair, which crystallised liberal and rightwing attitudes in fin-de-siècle France, Mirbeau's novel was one of the first to give a voice to domestic servants and critique the upper classes.

Diary of a Chambermaid is being made by the team behind Jacquot's Marie Antoinette biopic Farewell My Queen, which is up for 10 Cesar awards at the French equivalent of the Oscars. It is expected to shoot in March 2014.