ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

comedy

Running Naked – Days of Vain Life

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“Benjamin Taylor is leaving living today.”

Sometimes it takes the specter of death to bring light into life. Running Naked, from director Victor Buhler, is a feel-good dramedy that helps us see the beauty in life, even if we know that life is finite. Perhaps that finitude helps us see the meaning of it all.

As teenagers, Mark and Ben (Samuel Bottomley and James Senneck) were roommates in a cancer ward as they underwent treatment. The two would push against the confines of their situation. They plotted an escape from the hospital, only to discover there was nothing to do after they succeeded. Their highlight was a one lap race around the hospital floor au naturel.

Sixteen years later, Mark (Mathew McNulty) is an oncologist trying to bring hope and happiness to the teenage patients who are going through their own treatments. Ben (Andrew Gower) has become a reclusive, nervous nerd. Ben is plagued by OCD and a phobia of hospitals. He has a job in a basement that most people in the company don’t even know is there. Yet, through the years Ben and Mark have gotten together every Wednesday night.

When tests show a return of the cancer for one of them, Mark sets out to give Ben the life he has been missing all these years. With only a bit of time, the two reinvent their lives to discover the richness of life all around them, and finding joy and love that give meaning to days whether short or long. It also tests their friendship when they have to come to terms with changes in perspectives.

While not a outwardly religious story, there are places along the journey that allow us to reflect briefly on spiritual issues. For example, when the two men go to a dog track (where they won £50 as kids), Ben, at the last minute, chooses to put their money on a long shot, Hope Eternal. Later, we see the two, both as teens and as adults, sitting in the hospital chapel contemplating the words on the wall, “I will never forget you. I have written your name on the palms of my hands.” (Isaiah 49:16)

Although the Book of Ecclesiastes is never mentioned or quoted, the film is firmly rooted in the wisdom found there. The book’s key theme, stated in Ecc. 1:2, is “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!” It moves from a view of the world that is meaningless and repetitious (as Ben has been living) but through a search for wisdom, the writer discovered that the meaning of life is to “Enjoy life . . . all the days of your vain life that are given you under the sun, for that is your portion in life.” (9:9)

The film serves as a reminder that we too often get bogged down in the vanities of life when we are meant to be seeking the beauty and joy that surrounds us—even in seemingly dark times.

Running Naked is available on VOD.

Photos courtesy of Trinity Creative Partnership.

WandaVision Episode 7: “Would You Rather Be Feared or Loved?”

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I’ll keep this short and sweet. 

I haven’t had a show that has kept me in a perpetual state of “what the heck is going on and what the heck will happen” since season 5 of Bones the way WandaVision has. (To be fair, that’s actually the last season I watched – another story for another day.) Most of my conversations over the weekend involved episode 7: “Breaking the Fourth Wall,” and, if they didn’t, I was googling #allthethings.

Friday’s format was my favorite yet. The show’s use of The Office and Parks and Rec interview style and direct character-to-audience engagement was hilarious. Kat Dennings’ Darcy Lewis gets funnier by the minute, and I squealed at those scenes with Monica. Of course, the ending blew me away (I’m still humming the tune), and be sure to stay tuned during those credits as the powers that be finally pulled a classic MCU move with a bonus scene. There was just so much to watch.

And so I ask one question: if you aren’t tuning in to WandaVision, just what are you doing?

While it’s no secret that this is leading up to the next phase of movies, there is still so much to enjoy on its own merit. Elizabeth Olsen’s acting is phenomenal, especially when Wanda’s control is slipping and sliding. Her comedic delivery in this most recent episode is just one more example of Olsen’s ownership of this character and personifying the depth of complication and humanity that is within Wanda’s psyche. So often we talk about what she is doing to others and her motivations, but these past two weeks especially have shown us the toll it’s having on her.

Now we know that she isn’t the only player involved, but it’s her relatability that makes her such a powerful character for me. We’ve talked a lot about her losses and grief and just how powerful she is, but something I don’t think we talk about is how normal Wanda can be. No matter how or why she is in Westview, at her core she just wants a happy life. She loves Vision. She loves her boys. She’s stressed and tired from being on her guard 24/7. Super human or not, she just wants peace. 

As we fly forward into the final two episodes that are sure to be even more riveting than the ones we’ve seen so far, I’m hopeful we remember this side of Wanda. I don’t think she wants to be feared. I think she just wants to be loved.

WandaVision is now streaming on Disney+

Days of the Bagnold Summer – Nothing Important, Just Life

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For most of us life isn’t like the movies. We seem to go day by day without a great deal of drama. And yet those days that seem so ordinary are what life is made of. Days of the Bagnold Summer, directed by Simon Bird, is that kind of movie. The drama and the comedy are just the kinds of things that may not seem like much at the time, but they are bricks of life.

Sue Bagnold (Monica Dolan) is a single mom raising her 15 year old son Daniel (Earl Cave) in the English suburbs. Daniel is your typical metalhead wannabe. He dreams of being in a band, but he’d have to be the front man since he doesn’t play an instrument. He’s scheduled to visit his father and his pregnant young wife in Florida that summer, but when his dad decides it’s not a good time, Daniel is left with an open summer. Daniel, the personification of ennui, is set to sleep the summer away, but Sue isn’t having it. She sends Daniel out to apply for jobs (which he does in a manner that is doomed to failure). And she tries to do things with him to rekindle the fun they had together when he was younger. Daniel just wants to listen to Metallica.

Sullen teenagers just don’t want to have fun, though do they? Daniel is at an age where he hasn’t really discovered who he is or even who he wants to be. That metalhead persona is really just a form of holding pattern. And so the summer goes, through “early days”, “salad days” and “dod days”. Along the way Sue gets asked out on a date by Daniel’s former teacher, which only complicates things for both of them. But basically, the two struggle to find a way to coexist in the new world teen nihilism.

It’s interesting the way Bird has found to show the distance between the two visually, like the clothesline with black on one side and pink on the other, or Daniel in the foreground eating and Sue in the background a room away eating separately). But as the summer moves forward, they come together more often, even though each is also finding a new understanding of themselves in the process.

There is not big event or blowup that summarizes the summer. And yet, we seem to understand that this summer is in its own way an important time in their lives. As such, this is a movie that captures the kind of lives most of us live. Little by little all these days add up into a life.

Days of Bagnold Summer is available on virtual cinema through local theaters and on digital platforms.

Photos courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment.

On the Rock – Finding Trust

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“Don’t give your heart to any boy. You’re mine—until you get married. Then you’re still mine.”

Sofia Coppola’s comedy On the Rocks is in some ways a father/daughter road movie in New York City (with a brief excursion to Mexico). It is a relationship movie that looks at two troubled relationships at the same time, and ends up healing them both.

Laura (Rashida Jones) feels like she has a comfortable and happy marriage to Dean (Marlon Wayans), until someone mentions something that raises a hint of doubt about the amount of time he is working late and traveling with his new business associate. Unsure if she should be worried, she calls her globe-trotting, playboy father Felix (Bill Murray), who thinks the signs are obvious. Felix immediately comes back to New York to help Laura find the truth. Felix uses connections to find information, but they also spend time traveling through the city to spy on Dean. When Dean has a sudden trip to a resort in Mexico, Felix hauls Laura down there to confirm everything.

A key to understanding this is that Felix is very experienced in infidelity. He believes that such behavior is inbred in men since early humans. Since he knows his behavior, he reads that in to what he expects from Dean. Felix’s unfaithfulness had an impact on Laura’s family life as a child. Now, he is using this as a chance to reconnect with Laura.

In some ways, this film has some fairly conventional tropes: a workaholic husband who sees that as the way to provide for family, an at-home mom who begins to feel frumpy (at least that’s how Laura dresses). But the humor in the story is really based in the dialogue more than in the events themselves. To be sure, most of the comedy is created by Murray’s persona. The rest of the cast is essentially his straight man throughout.

The whole story is one about trust. When doubt begins to creep in to Laura’s thoughts, her faith in Dean waivers. The only person she feels she can call on is someone who seems very untrustworthy. Felix is full of himself and has gone from woman to woman. But Laura seems to feel that when it comes to his relationship with her, Felix will come through. He may go overboard, but he is going to be sure that Laura knows the truth. In finding the father/daughter relationship anew, Laura becomes ready to find the trust in Dean that she has misplaced.

On the Rock is available on Apple+.

Wednesday at AFIFest 2020

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My cat has enjoyed AFIFest 2020 Presented by Audi a great deal this year. She rarely has a chance to spend a whole afternoon on my lap when I actually have to go to movies. I doubt she realizes the qualities of movies she’s sleeping through. She’s missing out on some very good stuff.

The documentary Collective, by German-Romanian filmmaker Alexander Nanau, arrived at AFIFest with a load of festival awards. It takes place in the aftermath of a tragic 2015 nightclub fire that claimed 27 lives. The corruption that that fire exposed led to the fall of the government, and a new temporary government of technocrats. Yet, another 37 victims of the fire died over the next four months, mostly from infections. All the while the Minister of Health claimed the hospitals were among the best in Europe. When journalists discovered that the disinfectants being sold to hospitals were blatantly diluted, a new scandal erupted. This film takes us inside the controversy, the investigation, and the attempts at the new Minister of Health to create a better medical system.

The key quote I found in the film: “The way a state functions can crush people some of the time.” This is one of many films I’ve seen this year that portray the need of an independent and trustworthy press for democracy to function. Collective not only speaks to that need, but is clear that the power of government can be overwhelming. This film is Romania official submission for Best International Feature Film Oscar consideration.

In Ekwa Msangi’s Farewell Amor, an Angolan immigrant in New York is reunited with his family after seventeen years apart. Walter came to America following the Angolan Civil War, his wife Esther and daughter Sylvia went to Tanzania. It has taken all this time for Walter to get permission for them to join him. Meanwhile, their lives have gone in different directions. Esther has become quite religious. Walter has made a life for himself—with another woman. Sylvia, in high school, has her own dreams. There are chapters in the film that give us the perspective of each of these characters. It is interesting how dancing keeps coming into play within the film. The characters find identity, both separately and as family, in dancing. At times that dancing may be a source of conflict, but it can also be the beginning of healing.

You may wonder if there are ever any comedies at festivals. Yes, in fact I took one in yesterday with My Donkey, My Lover & I by Caroline Vignal. Antoinette, French fifth grade teacher, is having an affair with Vladimir, the father of one of her students. When he cancels a romantic getaway to take a hiking trip with his wife and daughter, Antoinette decides she will do the same hiking adventure and surprise him. Totally unfamiliar with hiking, she hires a donkey for the journey. Naturally, it becomes a comedy of errors as Antoinette must deal not only with Patrick the donkey, but with her total lack of hiking ability. When she does manage to run into Vladimir and his family, the awkwardness and revelations become a bit more than she expected. The trip turns out to be a way for Antoinette to come to better understand herself and opens up new possibilities for her.

Scare Me – But with Humor

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“You look like a fella who might be interested in scary stories.”

Mary Shelley’s Gothic/proto-SciFi novel Frankenstein grew out of a contest between her, her future husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and their friend Lord Byron. The competition was to see who could write the best horror story. (I wonder if there is any record of the two men’s attempts.) Josh Ruben’s premier feature film Scare Me is the same concept. Two writers (plus a couple minor characters) try to see who can scare the other. The result is a hybrid between comedy and horror.

Fred (Ruben), a wannabe horror writer, has rented a cabin in the woods so he can write his werewolf story. The only real problem is that he’s not really a writer and nothing goes onto the page. Out on a jog, he meets Fannie (Aya Cash) who is staying in a cabin nearby. It turns out Fannie is a bestselling horror author. She’s not much interested in Fred—she’s there to work. But when the power goes out that night, Fannie goes over to Fred’s cabin and they decide to tell each other scary stories.

Fred is obviously at a disadvantage. His werewolf story does nothing to change or advance that trope. He only has the bare bones of the story, even though Fannie prompts him for details. When Fannie tells her story, she creates a dark world into which Fred is drawn as he listens. Then they begin a tale about a troll that lives in the air vents of an office building. They bounce back and forth in the telling and acting out this story. When pizza delivery man Carlo (Chris Redd) shows up with dinner, he too joins in this celebration of being scared by words. In the end, Fred is confronted by the biggest horror, that he may not be any good as a writer, and his life is a failure.

For most horror stories we have come to rely on special effects, moody music, gore, and sudden surprises that make us jump in our seats. But here the horror is almost exclusively done with words. At times we visualize just a bit of the story, and there are occasional shadows on a wall or ceiling that reflects something in the story being told, but that just allows us to get better into the words.

Because it walks a line between horror and comedy, it never gets overly scary or over-the-top funny. But for those who like something a little different in their horror, Scare Me might fit the bill for a dark night in an empty house with wind, thunder and lightning outside.

Scare Me is available on Shudder streaming service.

First One In – Grown Up Mean Girls

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In press notes for First One In, writer/director Gina Obrien talks about the “millions of women who gather to hit balls at each other” on tennis courts each day. They may not be very good. But they share this bond. First One In bats that concept around with just about as much power as those mediocre players.

Madi Cooke (Kat Foster) has had her life ruined. She has been branded an eco-terrorist for killing a cute, near-extinct animal while on a Survivor-like reality show. People protest outside her home. She loses her job because of the publicity. She can’t even get an Uber if she’s recognized. After a new hairdo, she applies to work as a real estate agent for Bobbi Mason (Georgia King). Georgia is obsessed with tennis. She only hires Barbie-doll looking agents who play tennis and help her win the club team championship every year.

Madi begins brushing up her game (she hasn’t played since high school) at a local tennis clinic with a group of rather frumpy and definitely non-competitive women. When their coach enters them into the tournament, Madi is torn between her new job and her new friends. Eventually the teams will face off, with not just a trophy at stake, but Madi’s future.

The film seeks to show that women can forge bonds and how that can help them overcome their barriers. But I have issues with the portrayal of women in this film. Bobbi and her team are vain, vapid, superficial, and just plain mean. Think of a group of middle school mean girls who are now grown up. Madi is stuck in being a victim through most of the film. Her cohort at the tennis center all seem to be aimless and incapable of really accomplishing anything. The only character who seems to be grounded and confident, Madi’s high school friend Ollie (Alana O’Brien) becomes a catalyst for Madi’s new found strength, but she is always too much in the background of the story to develop her effect on Madi.

The story becomes a battle between meanness and victimhood. The final resolution doesn’t really grow out of the growth and strength of the characters. It has more to do with Bobbi’s ultimate failure of being able to boss and intimidate others. Any growth Madi manages in the story is a biproduct of her success, not the other way around.

First One In is available on Amazon Prime Video

The Argument – Elusive Truth

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“I don’t want to argue either, Honey, as long as you can admit that I’m right.”

Couples argue. Maybe about little things, maybe important things. But it’s just natural that two people each think they’re right, and expect the other to admit defeat.

Yeah, right.

The Argument, from Robert Schwartzman, revolves around (and around) such a conflict. Jack (Dan Folger) has planned a little cocktail party to celebrate the end of his girlfriend Lisa’s (Emma Bell) first professional acting job. He has invited his agent, Brett (Danny Pudi) and his wife Sarah (Maggie Q) to come by after the show. Lisa has also invited her co-star Paul (Tyler James Williams), who brings his girlfriend Trina (Cleopatra Coleman), although Jack is unaware that they are coming. Jack has an agenda for the night, which will culminate in asking Lisa to marry him. Instead, little things go wrong, feelings get hurt, things get said, and Jack and Lisa end up in a terrible argument that brings the party to a close.

That night, as they go to bed, both are still convinced that the other is a fault. One after the other they say, “I just wish we could redo this whole night so we could see how wrong you are.” Then the idea strikes them. They will invite everyone back again and relive the party to see just what went wrong. But the other couples are less enthused about this process. As the night goes on, new and different conflicts crop up. So they try again the next night. This time Jack is writing a script to get everything down verbatim. And again. And again.

As the events replay over and over, each person’s mistakes and flaws become magnified, letting each see themselves as others are seeing them. Eventually it culminates in an evening when instead of them reliving it all again, Jack has brought in actors for a script reading. The script obviously reflects his slant on everyone involved, and the actors add new dynamics to the situation. By this point, no one knows what any of the original conflicts were about.

The real question in The Argument is not what is the truth, but can we ever really know the truth, even when we are a part of what happened? Here are six people who are not just witnesses to what happened, but participants. Yet, the events can never be accurately recreated because everyone now has new perspectives and opinions that keep affecting their own ideas and those of others.

It’s not unimportant that the play Lisa and Paul were in was called Wolfgang (and seems to parallel Amadeus). The play was about the mixture of love and jealousy the defined the relationship of Mozart and Antonio Salieri. These are all people who yearn for greatness, but have not shown the world (or themselves) anything other than mediocrity.

While the story deals with the dynamics of relationships, it is really a look at how our self-centeredness undermines the foundations of relationships. Our own desires—including our desire to be right in an argument—often get in the way of the fulfillment we can find with people we love. Perhaps winning an argument isn’t as important as recognizing the joy we share.

The Argument is playing in theaters and is available on VOD.

Photos courtesy of Gravitas Ventures.

Laughing All the Way Home: 1on1 with Jemaine Clement (I USED TO GO HERE)

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As a comedy veteran himself, Clement knows what’s funny.

Having worked on such hilarious projects as What We Do in the Shadows, MIB:3 and, of course, Flight of the Concords, Clement argues that the best comedies of today are those that commit to their worldviews.

“At the moment, I feel like [great comedy is] believing what you say,” he begins. “Even if I don’t agree with a comedian still, if I can see that [they] believe it or the movie believes that, it’s committing, I think.”

Starring with Gillian Jacobs in the new comedy, I Used to Go Here, Clement was excited to dive into the role of David, a college professor looking for a fresh start. Though he was excited for the opportunity to work with Jacobs, he found this project particularly appealing because it felt like the type of stories that he enjoyed watching in his youth.

“[I Used to Go Here] reminded me of films [that] I used to go and see when I was a student,” he explains. “It’s like having a window into someone’s life and maybe [at a] trying time for them in a personal way where other people can’t relate to it… It’s an awful time for you, but it doesn’t sound bad for anyone else so people don’t generally talk about them. [laughs]. Then, in some ways, I found the story of the Gillian’s character story quite relatable. It was funny and Gillian’s really funny. I knew she was going to do it so I was excited to meet with her as well.” 

Written and directed by Kris Rey, I Used to Go Here tells the story of Kate Conklin (Jacobs), a young author about to release her debut novel. When her book receives less-than-stellar reviews, Kate is hurt and frustrated by the response. After she receives an invitation from her former professor and old crush, David (Clement), to speak at her alma mater, Kate jumps at the chance return to her old college as a published author. However, as she revisits her past haunts and relationships, she soon begins to slide back into her old life as a student with all its misadventures and misplaced feelings for her former professor.

Clement’s enthusiasm for working with his co-star Jacobs is palpable onscreen as the two have genuine chemistry together. As David and Kate, the two veteran actors work well together, creating a unique relationship that shows the push and pull between them. In an interesting way, the two characters also seem to be mirror images of one another, even if one has initially escaped their home town.

“David’s character was once a promising author and then he got into this other job that’s taken a lot of his time,” Clement recognizes. “He’s basically trying to draw Kate into the that life to take some pressure off of him. So, he’s a possible future for her. Then, she judges David [for having an inappropriate relationship] and basically falls into the same pattern.” 

Though Jacobs’ character may be the film’s central focus, Go Here also features some hilarious performances from young actors like Josh Wiggins and Hannah Marks. While his character may not have interacted with the young cast very much, Clement also notes that the enthusiasm that they brought to the set served as a reminder for him the privilege that is to work in film.

“It’s mostly Gillian in this story, but [director] Kris found some other great actors and actresses, a lot of them local,” he clarifies. “There’s a lot of them from Chicago where we filmed and where Kris lives so that was another fun part of the film. It was great to see people really excited about being in a movie. Sometimes, you have to remind yourself of that. I didn’t get to act with the kids–I’ll call them the kids, even though they were all adults–I didn’t hang out with the kids very much because my character is talking all the time. Literally lecturing. So, I didn’t get to bounce off those guys very often. It was fun doing the lecture thing with Hannah Marks.” 

Considering David’s flaws, Clement believes that his character ultimately just wants to move on in his career and personal life.

“I think he’s looking for some kind of a way out of there, you know?,” he states. “In academia, I think it’s sometimes seems a bit like that. When I see professors from the university where I went 26 years ago, they still look the same, say the same things, give the same lectures for years and answer the same questions. I think, sometimes, that’s rewarding and sometimes frustrating. I think you can see both of those.”

With this in mind, one of the key themes of Go Here is the (sometimes) overpowering nature of nostalgia. Asked what keeps drawing us back to our past seems to be, Clement argues that the appeal lies in our ability to reflect on the positive experiences at the expense of the negatives.

“Often, the way your brain works is you tend to forget the bad things,” he begins. “If you’ve ever been in a relationship, stopped that relationship and then go back to [it], you remember, ‘Oh, that’s right. We used to do this and she used to say that. I used to always reply to this’. I think it’s just that you forget the complexity of things and you remember the good things. I didn’t have the same experience with my college years. I wanted to learn about theater and film and I had a really bad time in my department. I can see my university from [my home] and I cringe at the idea of going there… I didn’t finish my degree and every time I think, ‘I should do those few papers’. Then, I look at the building and I go ‘No, no, no’. [laughs] I don’t want to be that old dude now either. That weird old dude in the class.” 

Though his background may be in comedy, Clement’s has been always excited to be a part of high-profile blockbusters when the opportunity arises. More specifically, his next role will take place on the famed CGI planet of Pandora in James Cameron’s sequel to Avatar. Drenched in secrecy, Clement notes that even he is surprised by the incredible security that the project carries with it.

“We’re filming after these interviews,” he beams. “I know I’m in [Avatar 2]. IMDB has me in up to [the fifth movie] or something like that. Even I was like, ‘am I?’ [laughs] I can’t tell you that much. It’s very secretive. We haven’t been filming over this how COVID pandemic, but they’ve started again because New Zealand’s back and working. I have a scene tomorrow and I go in today. My scripts in a vault and they’ll take my script out of the vault and then I’ll read it and try and learn it there. Then, it goes back in the vault and I go again tomorrow and then I’ll take it out of the vault again.”

Though he’s spent most of his career working on smaller films, working on major projects such as the Avatar sequel are always exciting opportunities for the actor. For example, Clement is always thrilled to work with high profile directors like James Cameron who have inspired his career.

“I’ve mostly done smaller films but, often with the biggest films, what’s made me interested as the director who maybe has done some films I’ve loved,” Clement grins. “Terminator 2 was one of my favorite film experiences I’ve ever had, when I was 15 or whatever I was. It’s hard for me to resist asking Jim, Terminator Two stories all the time. I only do about one a week. [laughs] I would ask after every time how they did certain special effects and The Abyss and things like that. He’s someone who’s quite an imaginative person and gets to make whatever he wants at this level. That’s what it feels like to me.” 

For full audio of our conversation with Jemaine Clement, click here.

I Used to Go Here is available on demand now.

Silencing Stereotypes and Celebrating Singleness: 1on1 with Andrea Dorfman (SPINSTER)

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When the world insists that satisfaction only lies in romance, something is broken.

While it’s true that romantic relationships can be exciting and life-giving, there’s little doubt that the pressure to ‘find love’ is everywhere. But is that really necessary to live a full and meaningful life? In her latest comedy Spinster, director Andrea Dorfman explores and celebrates what it means to be single when those around you think you’re missing out. 

Starring Cheslea Peretti (Brooklyn Nine-Nine), Spinster tells the story of Gaby (Peretti), a woman on the brink of forty who is looking for love and struggling to find it. As all her friends seem focused on their marriages and children, Gaby’s greatest fear is that she’ll end up alone. After a string of bad dating experiences leaves her exhausted, Gaby realizes that something needs to change and she decides to focus on building a life of meaning and connectedness without focusing on romance. 

Involved in the project from the outset, Dorfman believes that the idea stemmed from her own life experiences and revelations about life. Having struggled within that moment where it felt like everyone else was getting married, she wanted to tell a story that pointed out that there’s more to life than settling down. 

“Every film is such a journey. It takes a long time to make,” she begins. “Spinster is my fourth feature film and it’s the second film I made with my creative collaborator, Jennifer Deyell, who wrote the film… We started working on it in 2014, and it’s been through many iterations of story and screen. Ultimately, at its heart, we wanted to tell the story of a woman who gets to a place where romance isn’t the solution to all of her problems and creates meaning in her life on her own terms. That is certainly based on my own experience in my 30s and people who Jennifer and I both knew who were single at a time when friends were all getting married and having kids and were really made to feel that maybe that life was not viable or lesser than. Then, getting to a point where it’s like, ‘No, actually what if this is the only life I have?’ So, I think the kernel or seed came from that time of life.” 

For the character of Gaby, Dorfman wanted a known actress and was thrilled when Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Chelsea Peretti joined the cast. Though the actress’ age was important to Dorfman for this particular role, she knew that Peretti was perfect for the role because of her ability to balance deadpan humour and heartfelt delivery.

“The character in the film is 39 and we wanted her to be [that age] because it’s sort of an ominous [time] for people who [care] about age, I guess,” she explains. “It’s sort of the brink of middle age. If you want to have kids and you’re a woman, that biological window is closing so 39 was an important age. It just so happens that, at 39, for women actors (especially known women in Hollywood), there are a lot of them who are not working. So, we decided that we wanted to have a known actor to help sell the film and, when we were working with the casting agent, it turned out that there were a lot of women actors at [the age of] 39 who were available. That’s just the sad reality of Hollywood and women actors and film.“

“Aside from that, I had seen Chelsea’s stand-up special on Netflix, even before I saw Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I just loved it. I loved her writing, her delivery, and how deadpan and understated she was, and yet had something to say and a lot of gravitas. So, I think I just liked her as a human. I hadn’t seen her in much. When we were coming up with actors of that age, I was really interested in her. She was one of the few that we were thinking of. Then, she read the script and loved it and was game to come all the way across the continent from LA to Halifax to be in the film, which was wonderful… I think it’ll be interesting to see what she does as an actor, because she really does have this ability to tap into exactly who she is. That’s a huge asset because when she’s in front of the camera, you really believe her.” 

By following Gaby’s journey through relationships, Spinster seeks to expose stale stereotypes about settling down. For example, in one particularly interesting moment, her married friend insists that the problem is that Gaby needs to ‘choose [her mate], not be chosen’. Dorfman points out that, while Gaby’s friend may mean well, her comments expose flawed cultural ideas about the need for love.

“In some ways, it’s a little bit tongue in cheek because it’s a different way to put herself out on the market but to maybe have some perceived control,” Dorfman claims. “But I think where that’s coming from is this idea that women should be a certain something. You should do something. That you should actually be active out on the market at all. Why? Does it mean that life won’t be lived unless you’re in a relationship? No, of course not. Life doesn’t stop and start depending on your circumstances. So, that was coming from a place of her friend, just desperately wanting her to reflect the life that she’s already living in a way. Its disruptive when somebody does something completely different than us, and yet has found just as much meaning, love, life and inspiration than those others who’ve done the more sort of mainstream popularized ways of living life.” 

“You can decide to choose somebody and not be chosen, but we don’t have any control over what somebody else wants. Really all we can do is make choices in our own life and go from there and be active in how we want to live, imagine a new path that makes the most sense for us.” 

With that in mind, Dorfman also sees that the broader culture struggles to celebrate singleness as a valid (and important) life choice. Though she remains completely sympathetic towards those who struggle with loneliness, she believes that much of our culture’s emphasis on relationships stems from a larger system designed to make us feel insecure about being alone.

Says Dorfman, “I think that if you do anything that disrupts the capitalist channels of trying to sell us things to make ourselves happy, then you’re going to get pushback for it. One of those things is to be happy and single. If you’re women, to be happy and older. To be happy and not buy a lot of things to beautify ourselves. So, I think it actually is disruptive. There’s a lot at stake in making people believe that they need to be in relationships in order to be happy. We’re always telling people that you can attain happiness if you buy these things. (Usually, it’s about buying things, let’s be frank.) If you’re actually saying to people, there’s another way you can actually generate meaning in your life all on your own, I think that there’s something to lose. There are structures in place that will lose out on that.” 

“That being said, of course, loneliness is a huge issue in our society and something to be taken seriously,” she continues. “But I think there are ways to fight loneliness and to not actually have to be in a relationship. Probably the [loneliest that] I’ve ever been is in a dysfunctional relationship. We’ve all been there. For me, in my 30s, when I was going through this time, I think one of the things that I realized is that, if I can generate my own meaning in life [and] my own happiness, all the different supports and kinds of love that exists outside of romance [give me] a lot more control than trying to get somebody to fall in love with me or a version of me that, at the end of the day, probably has more to do with that person than who I actually am. I think that anytime somebody presents something counter-cultural, it is disruptive and creates pushback. It’s another way to be.” 

In addition to this, Dorfman also argues that this ‘system of wanting’ taps into an innate drive to fill the void in our lives. Asked what she thinks we are ultimately searching for in life, she says that the real question may be how to become satisfied with what we already have.

“I think it’s probably built into our DNA to want,” Dorfman posits. “I always go back to the hunter/gatherers [where] wanting is always survival, you know? We want the berries and the animals to hunt. I think that we’re always going to want something and maybe that’s the problem. [The goal is] to try to let go of the wanting. I think until we do that, we’re going to hitch ourselves and our happiness will hinge on things that we largely don’t have control of and that will probably lead to unhappiness. So, instead of the question being ‘why do we want things?’, maybe we need to frame it differently and start to focus on the not-wanting. I’m getting a little bit Buddhist there I think, but it’s something that I actually do think a lot about. That things that we want often just don’t make us happy and it’s that expectation that they will that gives us incredible disappointment.”

For full audio of our interview with director Andrea Dorfman, click here.

Spinster is available on VOD now.