Filmed in Brockton, ‘American Woman’ hitting theaters June 14

By Marc Larocque
The Enterprise
May 23, 2019

American Woman, formerly going by the title The Burning Woman, is scheduled to be released in theaters nationwide on June 14, according to distributors. The movie, starring British-American actress Sienna Miller, was filmed in Brockton and several surrounding communities in spring 2017.

BROCKTON – It was the second Hollywood movie filmed in Brockton within a year, and now it’s finally coming to the silver screen with a national theatrical release.

American Woman, formerly going by the title The Burning Woman, is scheduled to be released in theaters nationwide on June 14, according to distributors. The movie, starring British-American actress Sienna Miller, was filmed in Brockton and several surrounding communities in spring 2017, before it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall.

Roadside Attractions and Vertical Entertainment, which own the distribution rights to the film, recently released a two-minute trailer for American Woman, showing a pained Miller playing the mother of a teenage mom who goes missing for several years, leaving Miller’s character to take care of the baby. The disappearance of the teenager, played by Sky Ferreira, comes as Miller’s character works a thankless job as a supermarket cashier, having an affair with a local married man.

“This is a mother’s worst nightmare,” said Miller, speaking in the movie trailer as her character, rural Pennsylvania mom Deb Callahan. “I need to know what happened to my daughter.”

The movie, written by Brad Ingelsby and directed by Jake Scott, co-stars Christina Hendricks (as Callahan’s supportive sister), Aaron Paul, Will Sasso, and Amy Madigan.

In April and May 2017, Miller, Hendricks and Sasso were spotted in Brockton and on location in surrounding towns when American Woman was being filmed, predominantly on Burwell Street on the north side of the city, where production crews operated for around six weeks. Other filming locations included Harry’s Westgate Pub in Brockton, Trucchi’s in West Bridgewater and Ames Nowell State Park in Abington.

Less than a year before that, another major Hollywood film came to downtown Brockton. Action scenes in Detroit, directed by Oscar winner Kathryn Bigelow (of Zero Dark Thirty and The Hurt Locker), were filmed in the downtown area and on the Brockton Fairgrounds, along with other locations throughout Massachusetts, namely Dorchester.

Detroit later hit theaters nationwide on Aug. 4, 2017, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Detroit riots, which served as the backdrop for the film based on a true story about a group of young black men being held and beaten by police at the Algiers Motel, including three who were killed.

At the time American Woman was filmed on Burwell Street, Brockton Mayor Bill Carpenter celebrated the movie productions coming to the city. Massachusetts provides a tax credit program for filmmakers on projects that spend more than $50,000 in the state, providing a 25 percent production credit, a 25 percent payroll credit, and a sales tax exemption.

“I see developing Brockton as a venue for movie shoots as an important part of an overall strategy to change the perception of Brockton,” Carpenter told The Enterprise.