Cate Blanchett (The Aviator) is preparing The Dinner as her directorial debut.  The Oscar-winning actress will go behind the camera for the first time in an adaptation of Herman Koch's 2009 novel that centers on a dinner between two couples at a fancy restaurant.  As the courses are completed and the plates are cleared, their conversation goes from civil to sinister as the topic changes to an ongoing police investigation involving each of their 15-year-old sons.  The psychological thriller was adapted by screenwriter Oren Moverman (The Messenger).  Hit the jump for more.

Deadline reports that Blanchett will direct The Dinner, but it's unclear at this point whether or not she'll also star.

the-dinner-herman-koch-book-cover

Here's the synopsis from Koch's book, The Dinner (via Amazon):

It's a summer's evening in Amsterdam, and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant for dinner. Between mouthfuls of food and over the polite scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse -- the banality of work, the triviality of the holidays. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened.

Each couple has a fifteen-year-old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act; an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable, insulated worlds of their families. As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children. As civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple show just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.