She had intended her feature film debut to be "Itchy", based on a script she wrote about a 12-year-old actress starring on a television series. However, she was unable to get the project green-lighted, and turned to another property she had, an adaptation of one of her favorite short stories, Alice Munro's "The Bear Came Over the Mountain". The story, which deals with a couple dealing with the wife's Alzheimer's disease, appealed to her as her own grandmother had suffered from the affliction.
