Varie
Karen’s life as a small town receptionist is turned upside down when the father she never knew calls for a refrigerator repair. Karen sets out to investigate, dragging along her friend Meagan posing as a mechanic. By the end of the day, Karen will also encounter her father’s closet lover, a compulsive sister addicted to off track betting, a brother struggling with grade school heart ache and bullies, a broken refrigerator and a load of fireworks. (Imdb)
NOTE DI REGIA:
As a child in a dysfunctional family and midwestern native, common themes began to reoccur in my stories:
People sang secretly by themselves but never out loud with others. They kissed mirrors instead of crushes. Enemies were stuck together in jobs they hated. Mothers worked their issues out in cars; teenage siblings through fisticuffs. My characters always had simple yearnings they never laid out on the line unless forced to and from very constrictive places.
I understand now why I am more interested in presenting “small” people with “big” problems in my movies. Most of America is small people with big problems.
If this pain of reality were dealt with more, people could trust they are their own leaders rather than searching for heros.
My script, “My Best Day” starts out with the premise of a young woman, Karen, who works as a refrigerator repair dispatcher. She gets a repair call that might actually be from the father she never knew. Karen sneaks out and takes the janitor, Meagan, along with her, posing as the refrigerator repairman.
The comedy stays in the course of the day. While Karen’s father is at work, she snoops around his trailer and encounters a half brother, Ray, who gets picked on by the neighborhood kids, a half sister, Stacy, addicted to off track betting, a closeted step-father Eugene and very real struggle with her own family identity. Karen’s partner in crime, Meagan, is a lesbian who is in a worn but safe relationship and deliberating an affair.
By the end of a turbulent day, all could end well if every character faces their own inner demons. The characters and their conflicts all represent different parts of me that have been bullied, in love,afraid, secretive, impatient, compulsive but ultimately, courageous.
Why use comedy to grapple with the very dramatic problems of addiction, adultery, internalized homophobia, teenage bullying and seeking one’s bloodline is simply that this is what I am naturally drawn towards doing. I can be more active through people floundering for the wrong thing and more empathetic in characters stumbling upon their own revelations.
My most political, sharp, sincere and true moments as a director have been hearing a room full of audience members laugh and relate to characters across lines of race, gender, class and sexuality.
As a filmmaker, I want nothing more than this. I want to be specific about my own perspective enough to present the much larger reality of life that we all share.
Erin Greenwell
Condividi