Casey on You Can Count on Me

always self conscious about it. But then I'm always going for comfort over wanting to, you know, not choose something that's so on brand. But there you have, right, Well, I'll tell NOL. I'll pass it along that your comfy as shirt is his. Well it's not his face, but I guess rescuing face. Yeah, it's rescuing wrapped up on your body. How you doing? You know, I'm doing Okay. I'm just kind of sick of, you know, being at

home all the time. But that's everybody's, uh state of affairs if they're lucky enough to be able to stay home, so I can't complain too much. But yeah, I mean, I'm just eager to kind of, I don't know, be in the world again. I hear you me too, buddy. I appreciate these hangs with you that that makes life a bit more worth living, it really does it. Really, Um, you get that sense of connection back a little bit, which is super important. You know. Actually I saw you

one time since this all started. We didn't we didn't speak, but I had to run by the office for something, and you happen to be in the studio, um, probably doing something remotely, and I was gonna like tap on the window, but I think you guys were actually like actively recording, so I just kind of kept it moving. But that's funny. I've been in there a couple of times and heard you know, the exit door is right there next door studio. I've heard that door open and shut,

which is a little eerie. When it's you know, the walking dead town. You hear a door open and you're like, who is that? No. I'm always like when I'm going in the office now, which is not frequent, you know, once in every few weeks at most, but um, it is always sort of like, is somebody else here? Somebody gonna come come around the corner and scare the crap

out of me? Well, uh, we're all masking up in there, and unless like there's nobody there, but if there's been a couple of times there's been like like Ben came by when I was in there the other day, and uh, ironically Ben's desk out of that huge office is the one closest to mine, which is probably like ten ft um. But yeah, Ben had a mask on and I had a mask on, and I was like, all right, good to see you. I'm going in the studio. Yeah. Yeah,

it's weird. I mean that the social interactions now where there's like this low level like I kind of wish this other person wasn't here. H It's very very strange, but I've definitely gotten it where like I'm just walking around my building or something, and you know, you passed by somebody in the hallway and you have that moment of like I kind of wish, you know, if I don't know my mask with me or something. Yeah, there's like another person. There's an obstacle. Yeah, I went to

get I was getting on the elevator. I had called the elevator at work and it opened and right when it dinged, I went to step on and this guy can kind of hustling up behind me, and I was like, go ahead, dude, I'm not getting on a fucking elevator with anybody. I'm not in that big of a hurry. Yeah, no, not at all. Well, but than that, I mean, I'm I'm having a good time. It's just um. Yeah. Like I said, I don't know, I missed going to the movies, and that's that's a big thing to kidding. I miss

live music. Yeah yeah, oh and this is that's live music. See me the last thing, Casey, I know they're they're getting Do you see Gray White play the show? No? Who's that great White? This is an awful story. Why does the band that back in the two battle band? Yeah yeah, the one that played the show with the pyrotechnics and spire started like a hundred people died. They're playing a coronavirus show, are they? Well? I figured we

we blasted people up. Yeah all right, dude, so you were here to your next movie pick was The two thousand. Hard to believe this movie is twenty years old, but the two thousand uh sibling indeed drama you can count on me From writer director playwright Kenneth Law Again, although this was not a play first, I believe this was just his first abbot of movie, right. I think he

had written he had written some screenplays before this, like exactly. Yeah, And I'm sure he probably did script doctor and maybe sold some more that that we haven't heard about. Um, but this is certainly his first one as like writer direct here, you know, writing something that he himself wanted to put up on screen. Yeah. I read a little

bit with him yesterday. He wrote, analyzed this and he wrote the Rocky and Bullwinkle movie, and uh, I think it was like a ten years on sort of piece and you can count on me, which those are always kind of fun to read, like retrospectives. But he said, yeah, he said, you know, I made my name sort of writing those movies that We're fine, but this is clearly when I got a chance to direct my own film.

This is way more of my speed. Uh. And the he said, the initial idea just came to him very simply, which was, what about a story of two siblings where one is kind of a consummate funk up and one is always worried about him and they and they were orphaned when every young. And that's one of the things I love so much about this movie, and it's one of my favorite films. The first time I saw this movie in the theater twenty years ago, Uh, it resonated with me a lot because I talked about my brother

a lot. But I have an older sister who's six years older than me, and we are very close as well. And I was always sort of the black sheep of the family, and I was the wanderer all over the country, and I never had a job that was not waiting tables or something, and everyone was always like, what's chucking to do? What's where is he going to end up?

And low level worried. I wasn't getting in bar fights and thrown in jail, but you know, bopping around the country smoking weed and like just living my best life, which is not what they were doing. And she was one of those that got married young were young to me, you know, in her early twenties to our high school sweetheart and um, great dude that he's awesome and they're

still married, but just different paths in life. So this movie really really resonated with me as uh, like I'm kind of him and she's kind of my sister, Michelle. It's a very very special movie to me. Absolutely the same with me. Um, I found myself watch it, you know, for the first time in a number of years last night,

and it was it was just interesting. I mean we talked about this a lot on this show, with movies that I've seen maybe twenty years ago and then I'm seeing again now, although I have seen them in the years in between, but there's just something about the shift in perspective, and I felt like this time I could I could basically see everybody's side of it much more clearly, whereas before I was maybe a little bit more like, even though he's a funk up, I was still on

you know, uh, what's yeah, Terry's Terry side of things, Like, you know, it's just like and the guy's cool, just give him a break, you know, And watching it last night, it was really like, No, he really does like he's kind of a he's kind of a trainer w reckon and he needs to pull it together and he is actually hurting people around him, so it's not as if it's just his own trip that he's on. But um, especially like his girlfriend is pregnant, that that whole part

hit a lot heavier to me. Um, the way that he's clearly almost kind of running out on her in a way at least he's tempted to. First seen with him is really tough. Yeah yeah, and and just so well played. And this was the first time I had seen Mark Ruffalo, who, as I think, as the stuff

you should Know listener. He tweeted out an episode of ours once, the Trail of Tears episode, and I got no further confirmation of anything, but I think he listens to stuff you should Know, which made me super super ou. Oh man, that's so cool, that's really great. I'd like to get him on this show. Yeah, yeah, killer, yeah, But I don't, I don't. I didn't look up his filmography. Do you know if this was his first role, it's like his breakout role. So he'd been some stuff up

to then, but I don't think. I don't know if you necessarily had any leading roles, and he certainly hadn't had anything where, you know, he felt like he could fully embrace the material and become that character and and really give it like a thousand percent the way he does in this film. So this is definitely like a big breakthrough for him. Yeah, he's so great, and that the acting, I mean, Laura Lenny so good, it's so yeah, man,

I'm just in love with her. She's as an artist, she's uh, she's one of those people that and she's so well cast in this and I think Ozark because of this quality, which is the warmest human you could imagine and the warmest smile. But there's also this thing where she's not to be trifled with and she's not to be fucked with a little bit. Oh yeah, and that's a that's a tough one, too punch to pull off.

I think absolutely. Yeah, she she remains very warm and open and sympathetic, but at the same time, you don't want to cross her, and she's going to call you on your bs, so you better be on top of things. Yeah. Yeah. That scene later in the movie when Matthew Brodrick is essentially trying to fire her, and we'll get into all this stuff, but I love that because I remember the first time I even saw it thinking, oh, dude, don't do it, because you just had an affair with her

and she could fucking take you down. Yeah. Not smart, he's he's he's very um. He's great in this too. Yeah. Matthew Broder. I love Matthew Broder, whose apparently he's um Kenneth Lanagan and he have known each other since they were like fifteen. Um they go way back and UM yeah yeah, they're like they went to the same school and um the school actually that they both went to, um, which I think we're sort of talking about making this

a little mini directors series. Is that correct? Uh? Yeah, so we'll do Margaret Manchester by the Sea and then that'll be I haven't seen either one of those, No kidding, why did I see Margaret? Who was Margaret? Uh Anna Paquin is the is the lead and Margaret nothing in either one of those. And I avoided Manchester by the Sea on purpose because I knew it was such a downer, and uh, I was like, yeah, I'm gonna get to it. I'm gonna get to it, and then never got to it.

Watching watching this again, it was it was definitely like, oh, this is almost like a companion film to Manchester by the Sea in a way. I mean, all his films center or own kind of prominent deaths and then the fallout the effect that that has on on the characters that are left alive. But um, definitely that one is in a in a heavier register than than this one, which remains a little more comic and light at times, even if beneath the surface there's there's real stuff, heavy

stuff going on. Um Manchester by the Sea is a little bit more self consciously like bergman esque or something where it is kind of like pretty dark, and there's a lot of humor in it too, but no, no question a darker film. And Margaret, I want to say, is a little bit more of a blend of the two. Margaret has a more kind of expansive view of the world, even though it is still based on this one central character. There's so many like peripheral characters and they all kind

of get their their moment to shine anyway. We'll we'll talk about that when we get to it. So but the thing that I the reason I brought up Margaret was, um, Matthew Broderick and Kenneth Lanagan went to the same kind of like prep school together, and there's a prep school and Margaret that is basically there see in that film that he's writing with his recollection of like class discussions and arguments and so on that happened to them when they were in school. And now is is he in

either one of those? Because he plays the Priest in this movie. He's in both. Yeah, it's a great effect. I think him, he's he's very understated in this role. It's great, doesn't require some huge range, but uh, he's just so kind of perfectly played. I think now he's great. I love his his his character as the as the priest. Um, you get the feeling he has a crush on on Sammy. Yeah,

and he seems he seems a little spaced out. He seems a little bit like he could be a stoner or something, or or maybe he just comes by that disposition naturally, you know, because he's he's very much like he he is so opposite the whole black and white, you know, good and bad sort of evaluation. He's not a fire and brimstone guy. He's like, uh, yeah, what do you think? You know, it's a little bit of this is a little bit of that. I can't really tell you the right answer, but you know, do with

it what you will. And I'm trying to have to hurt anybody. That's that's about it. Ideal priests. Yeah, yeah, you know, it's like almost like a therapist really, you know for the town. Yeah. Absolutely, And that scene is great too, when she h when Sammy calls him in basically, and Terry is just so fucking pissed and it's just

boiling beneath the surface. But there was also this, um there's so many layers, I think, to so many of these scenes, Like he was upset, but the way that the priest was challenging him was working and you could tell and that kind of made him a very sincere answer.

Once once he kind of cracks that armor. Yeah. The the one thing that especially watching this last night and then watching it again immediately after with with the Lanagan commentary on the DVD, UM you you quickly realized that all these scenes have multiple layers happening at the same time. And Lanagan talks a lot about how in terms of writing the dialogue, like you really enjoys writing dialogue, but at the same time, on a certain level, the words

are not what it's what is important. What's important is what the scene is quote unquote really about, and all the sort of behavioral stuff that's happening parallel to the dialogue. So you know, if somebody's telling a story, they were having a conversation about their day, it could just as easily be something different. Happened to them in their day. But it's more about how much is this character really listening to this other character? Is there something else on

their mind? Um? Is there something that they're trying to get out of this interaction that's going on? Said and and but we as the audience are kind of becoming aware of it and so on. It's all that stuff that that you don't You don't just give an actor or a character one thing to do in a scene, because that's so flatten boring. It's sort of like you want things to be a kind of cross purposes or parallel to each other or um, just just to give

the sense of like life is going on. It's not just that these people are chess pieces on a board. They're these three dimensional human beings and they have these kind of conflicting impulses um at any given moment, like they're being pulled in different directions and against their own like worst instincts are better instincts. So all of that gets thrown into the knicks um pretty much in all the scenes of the film. Yeah, I think that's um.

When you start writing scripts, it's one of the biggest lessons you can learn, is uh, like you were saying the dialogue isn't and I don't want to say rarely, but um, a lot of times it's not even what is going on in the scene, and that's the best stuff. Otherwise it's too on the nose. And if you think about real life, how many times do you have, um, just even passing conversations with someone from work where what you're saying is not really what's either going on or

what's on your mind exactly. Yeah, and it happens all the time. Yeah. People people talk around whatever it is that they're really thinking so often because maybe they're averse to confrontation in or they just don't want to worry the other person with whatever is actually traveling them, or they have a huge asshole and you can't let them know that. That's all right, that's right. You have to

keep things kind of civil. So you know, you have the quote unquote professional relationship, but in the back of your mind, you're really thinking, by that guy is just a pain of the you know whatever. Um. Long Agan is so good at at doing that, and it's I think it's very rare for especially for a writer director to have that kind of attitude towards their language towards

their words. He's he's definitely not like in the Coen Brothers school of like you left out a period or a comma sort of thing, um, which is works wonderfully for them as well. But you get the senset for Long again, if if if a line is is giving an act of trouble, it's sort of the thing of like, well, how would you say it, or how would the character say it? Or what what what would work better there?

And adjusting things on the fly on set, as opposed to like the script is this thing that's written in stone every pause in comma and hesitation and has been like scripted out in advance. It's it's definitely not that. And I think that's that's something rare, like I said, for a writer director, because they tend to be very uh into the language and the words and the precision of of that and the control it gives them over

the drama right exactly, um. And so for long Agan, he says that even though he is a screenwriter, he when he puts on that director's hat, it's sort of like it might as well be somebody else's script. He will cut stuff, he'll change stuff, he'll rework if it's not if it's not what he wants it to be. And um, yeah, it's it's great that people that some some directors can really have that level of perspective and

not get overly like attached to play the words. Yeah. Um. Another thing that really knocks me about, knocks me out about this script is how much is not said. Um. There are a bunch of examples in this movie where um, and he does it in a bunch of different ways. There's a few examples I can think of. There's at the very beginning after Uh, and of course we're spoilers as always everybody, but the very first thing that happens in the movie is is the parents are killed in

a car crash. Um did not recognize that was Amy Ryan by the way, Yes, I know, I know. This is like a one minute scene, not even twenty second scene. Yeah, it's funny. Um, this is like the first of two that I can think of, Um, beloved things with both Amy Ryan and Steve Roll featured in some way the other way of course, Oh right, right, of course, yeah, all over this too, great effect. Yeah, and I didn't I didn't pick up on the Steve Roll until like

the credit song. I was like, Oh, that's Steve Rolls singing, and then like as the songs are going by, I'm like, oh,

there's like seven Steve roll songs movie. But um, the first example is when that that state trooper shows up, um, and you know that's sort of a trophy scene where the state trooper knocks at the door in the middle of the night, you know what's happening, and the babysitter answers the door and he asked, you know, to tell the kids you're going to be back in a second, and then he kind of inhales and it cuts like

he you don't see him say it, so that's left unsaid. Um. Later on the Priest, when you have the woman priest during the wake, Uh, she's talking and giving a you know, I was about to stay performing the wake. Whatever you say leading the wake, and the music is is bad is laid over at this great classical score. And then the most famous of all is that the last scene

of the movie, which we're going to get to. But um, the thing that they always said to each other as kids, clearly as you can count on me right, And I love that they never say it because that is how that would happen between those people. Yeah, you wouldn't say it out loud, no, I mean in in the really bad like corny notes from the studio version you would. But oh, I bet you somebody tried to get him

to put that in there. Yeah, because it's almost like he's like rubbing your face in it that like, yeah, no, I'm not going to see the title of the movie. You're gonna have to fill that piece in yourself. But I mean it reflected those just how it's like in um in movies, you know, um or in real life, people don't really call each other by their names that often. And when you see that in screenplays where people are constantly like you know, or a couple is sort of

like rehashing their recent history. That again, you would have no reason except for exposition, just to deliver. Yeah. So he's he's so um, he's so well attuned to those little subtle things, and it just I don't know why, but the effect is so powerful when you yourself have to kind of fill that gap in your mind because you know they're both thinking it, and it's you're almost like a participant in the scene in that way. And it's just it's so effective. It's you know, it gets

me every time, every fucking time. That last scene destroys me. Emily went to bed last night because we had a big day yesterday with Ruby's birthday. But she, uh, she said, how was it? Seen it again? And I was like it was unbelievable. I said, I didn't wake you up at the end. She said, you know, I was like, I was fucking sobbing, dude. I was. I was losing it, like it midnight in the dark in my room. I was just could not keep it together in that scene, and I knew it was going to reckon me. It

always does. Yeah, there's there's that moment in the film. There's the one a little bit earlier on where um he's sitting on the bed. She sits down next to him and she says, you know, maybe be a good idea if he stayed at home for a while. And he breaks almost immediately, and it's again like something about

just the way he he performs that bit. I'm getting like goosebumps just thinking about it, because it's so a little bit like a little quiver in the way he lowers his head and he just like, you know that feeling where he can barely get the words out. It's just like he's having such a hard time, and yet he he wasn't gonna say anything. You know, he was going to just act like it was all fine, because he's always okay. That's who he is, no matter what's

going on. Even if I went to jail, it was like, it's all fine, It's all fine, which is one of the things I love about that last scene between them. He says things a couple of ways that um make you realize that he knows this and he's not being uhum a Pollyanna and just saying everything's great and gonna be great. He says something like, you know, comparatively, it's not going to be that bad. Nothing that bad is going to happen. Nothing that bad is going to happen.

He's just reassuring your like, you know, I'm going to go back to Wooster, I'm going to see this girl. I'm gonna be depending on how that goes, I might head out west, i might go to Alaska, I might do this, and might do that. But you know, throughout it, he's sort of saying like, and if that doesn't work, I'll figure something else. Out like I'm a grown up. You can relax. You don't have to like but hes or three lives, you know. For all, he wasn't saying

I'm going to be awesome. He was saying I will be basically okay, I'll be a grown up and I'll deal with it as it as it comes. And it won't be perfect, it'll it'll be far from it. But you know you can you can rest assured that. Um, you know, you don't have to be there to supervise. It's not like it's that desperate of a situation. Yeah. Well, and this is a sister who keeps a file drawer

labeled Terry Fun, which is just so sweet. Um, And what a jumping off point to have these two siblings that are in real life separated by about four years and you kind of get the picture. That's about what it is in the movie that just you know, they they're they only have each other. And that's such a

powerful place to start a dramatic storyline. You know. Yeah, so many other family dramas you would have, like the kind of extended family to fill things out, or to complicate things, or maybe to kind of keep things a little bit beneath the surface or something. But because it really is the two of them and they are kind of alone in the world except for with each other. Um,

it just makes it. Yeah, it just makes you emotion more palpable, and the relationships are that much more dynamic and um critical, you know, because that's like you said, all they have is each other in this world. Yeah. Uh. The other one another line that really stands out to me early on is when that that scene with the his girlfriend, Um in what that Gabby Hoffman, Yeah, I

believe so, I believe so. But he says, and it's such a brilliant one liner that says so much about this character, was I'm not the kind of guy that everyone says I am. And that just says it all about this guy that's constantly defend having to defend um the things that he's done, knowing that he's done a lot of wrong things. Yeah. And it's it's the Lanigan talks about in the commentary. How it makes him even more interesting and maybe frustrating as a character is the

level of self awareness he has about all this. And yet even with all that articulateness and self awareness and and just kind of knowing quote unquote the kind of guy he is and the kind of guy that people think he is, he seems like he's unable to kind of get a grip, get a hold on it. And men make those changes in mature a little bit and no longer be sort of like the professional screw up. But you know, it's like he he knows he's doing it, but he he can't he can't resist it in some ways.

And I found myself, especially throughout this viewing, kind of feeling like at certain moments maybe he was going to take that next step and mature, and then he would just do something that would kind of like you go, oh, Terry, come on, man, like, you know, especially like after the Priests visit, for instance, where he's obviously angry at Sammy and he wants to get back at her in some way, and so he uses the kid by proxy the fishing trip,

and it's like, man, that's such an immature, dickish move,

you know. But I mean that that that he himself could see clearly for what it is, but maybe only with a little bit of removed because in the immediate moment he's just angry, you know, And of course it's it's it's so rich, like, Um, there's such an undercurrent of he is hyper aware that he is the black sheet, that he is the outcast and so on, and that she's looking at him as the failure, the thing I have to worry about and deal it and so on.

So all throughout when he's living there, anything that she does that's not completely above board, he like sees on it to say, as if to say, like, look, you screw up, to like you make mistakes, you're having an affair with your boss, etcetera, etcetera. Um, he wants to kind of like break out of that that role as the screw up because if he feels like it's it's something that's mutually reinforcing, you know, like everybody perceives him as this thing, and then he just continues to be

it and it wears him out. He talks about that in that first lunchtime scene when they first meet up. Yeah, yeah, totally. Um. The other thing that I feel like, because there's the reference to her being the wild child, but she's gotten it together. But there's something about his presence that I think has allowed her to be bad a little bit. Um,

maybe because he's so much worse. Um, but she's I think she kind of brings out that wild in him, and you know, smoking a little pot with them, something that she sounds like she hasn't done a long time, starts this affair. She can't decide whether to marry this guy who's just sort of I mean, he's not a bad guy at all, but you know, she's boring. Yeah, and then that line that she has when she's talking

to the priest really says it all. She's like, I feel sorry for them, yes, and that's why she's sleeping with him. I mean, that's she feels sorry for for both the guys. She feels sorry for her brother. You know, she she she basically feels like she has the whole world on her shoulders. It's not she's an impact, Yeah, it's it's not just her life that she's living. But she's really trying to manage and make sure that all

these other people are going to be okay. And I think that I hadn't really thought about it before, but I think there's such a deeper connection there in terms of them having lost their parents at such a young age. I think for her that just drove her to feel like it was on her as the older sibling right to to be this kind of guardian for everybody. So that's a role that she feels very comfortable in, and that has extended to just her boss at work or

this guy that she's dating. You know. It's just like the mode that she operates in is that, um, I don't know. She she likes uh, she likes a flawed person, a project somebody that. Yeah, and it's like she she sees that and she's kind of like, well, nobody else is gonna take care of this person. So I guess it's got to be me because it the thought of somebody just being out there in the world without anybody to look after them brings to mind like her in

his situation as kids. So I think that's you know, to a large extent where where that impulse comes from. Yeah, for sure, I mean she's she's definitely someone who makes for him being the funk up. She makes us just

a series of bad decisions. And then when we meet uh an asset ex husband they probably weren't even married, but um, Rudy sr And that that great kind of short scene by Josh Lucas, that is a bad mistake, you know, she's clearly drawn to the wild side a little bit and had a kid with this guy, and

uh that scene, man, talk about another heartbreaking scene. The whole time that Mark Ruffalo is in the car and you know, there's a good launching off point to talk a little bit about Rory Culkin and one of my favorite kid performances and kid relationships with an adult in a movie. But the whole time where he's like talking about wanting to become meet your dad. He didn't live far from here. I'm just going, no, no, no, don't do this, don't do it. And and it's just so

fucking tough to watch that scene. I was thinking about that too last night, Like the the argument that um he and in Sammy have afterwards where she says, like, look, he's going he's eight or nine years old. He's going to realize soon enough that the world is is terrible and people are shitty and you know, there's there's no good, there's no everything is bad about this world. He's going to figure that stuff out soon. Why do you have

to like go and ub his nose in it? But honestly, like, whether whether he's thought about it consciously or not, he's kind of re enacting the same sort of bubble bursting that he and she experienced as kids. Too. It's almost like they didn't really get to have a childhood. They

had to grow up real fast after they lost their parents. Yeah, that's what he knows, and that's he kind of thinks, like that ought to be the natural state of a kid, is being confronted with reality, being confronted with like the screwed up nature of things, as opposed to He's so angry with his sister for quote unquote sheltering him, you know, And and I think partly it's maybe because he's had a rough life, and so he thinks of the world that way as something that's going to chew you up

and spit you out, and you better be tough to deal with it. And he sees this kid who's kind of living this charmed existence, very sheltered, and he wants to toughen him up a little bit. But at the same time, what he's really doing is kind of, you know, reenacting his own trauma in a way of like it's not the same thing exactly, but it is both about they're both kind of quote unquote losing a parent in a way or never having one to begin with. Um, yeah, well,

Terry kind of Um. He he punishes other people when he feels bad about himself. Uh. He lashes out, um like you were saying earlier when he's mad at Sammy. So he's taking it out on Rudy and she that scene where she calls him on it in the hallway is so great where she's just like, he's son of a bitch, Like he's a child and I know you're mad at me, but like and that flips him. You know. He shows up the next day with the fishing poles

after church and kind of just shrugs. You know that that's such a great exchange because there's another another dialogue less just you know, an exchange of of looks basically absolutely um. But yeah, he he feels bad about himself a lot through this film, and it feels a lot

of guilt and then takes that out on other people. Yeah, which is a human thing to do, you know, absolutely, And whether he even consciously realizes that's what he's doing, that he has this pattern of punishing people for his own shortcomings, you know, it's it's I mean I love that about about this film that the characters really are three dimensional. We can see that they have some very deep flaws in some cases, but they're never really unsympathetic.

It's just like we we recognize our own kind of foibles in that as well. I think, yeah, and I think he's a character who, um, in a very non Hollywood way, does end up at a slightly different place than where he came in. UM, not in some great place. But that line early on is such a sad line where he says, I'm just trying to get on with it, like that's what life is to him. And I feel like at the end he and he even says this, Um, he wants to see her again, He wants to see

Rudy again. He wants to spend Christmas with them, not something he's going to do out of obligation. And you can tell what's important for him that she knows that that he is, that this stay there changed him just

like this much. It's you know, it's kind of like the whole Boyo cried wolf thing a little bit, because he's probably made these same promises and so on many many times before in his life, and it's hard in a way to know, well, is he going to really make good on these promises, because you still can't, even even when you're supposed to, like go see the kid

before he leaves his last day. He's late by like an hour and they almost leave, and then he finally shows up and he's like sorry, I'm like, you know this, that is just his state of being is to be perpetually like a little bit behind where the rest of the world is, and to be very apologetic about it, and yet seem incapable of making any changes to to improve on that. And you know, it reminded me of a line. Um, there's a line in a Wilco song, all my lives are always wishes, you know that one

from Yeah it really he is true. It's the sort of thing where like it's kind of an attic thing too, where every time there it's like, this is the time I'm going to quit, or this is the time I'm gonna stop doing that, or that's never gonna happen again, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. You know, you wake up with a hangarbar That's the last time I'm ever gonna drink, And then it's sort of like it just it just floats into the ether and then the same behavior happens over and over again,

and um, so I don't I don't know. It's part of the human condition, I think, Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely, it's it's for for a lot of people. Yeah yeah, yeah, to be to be caught in a in a perpetual cycle of something that's not great for you, um, and and to to to realize that and yet yeah, you haven't quite yet reached the point where you can actually change that, and some people of course never do. Yeah. Absolutely, Um.

I love that scene earlier to where he's first kind of gotten into town and he smokes the joint in the alleyway and then kind of goes out to the main street and he sees the sheriff is an old friend and he sees the old man, and you know, it's a small town and everyone knows the orphans. Um, everyone knows these two, uh, Sammy and Terry. And one of my favorite sort of plots and movies is the or at least themes is that you can't go home

again thing. And this is about a lot more than that, but it definitely has that thread and it's always impactful to me. There's something about leaving and coming home that's just really resonates with me. I think in films that scene where you know, it's it's very early, it's I think it's maybe his first night or second night at home where he goes out to the bar by himself. Yeah, and he's just sitting there wordlessly, like drinking the beer,

smoking the cigarette. Nobody's sitting next to him. There's really nothing going on. He's looking across it like one guy, and he's doing that thing where he kind of nods and he's like bouncing around, but there's really nothing to be excited about. And you can just tell he's like he's so alone, he's so utterly alone, and yeah, um, maybe that's a bar that he used to go to with friends and so on, but it's it's completely not

the same anymore. And um, and he obviously he feels very very ill at ease and like uncomfortable in his skin in that moment of just being confronted with like there's not really any distractions. I just have to like sit here and you know, think about the time that's past and what has or hasn't gotten better changed for

for the better in my life and so on. Yeah, there's that scene in the bar and then the other great great bar scene when he takes really out to shoot pool and uh, I mean that that's one of the really sweet, sort of great moments of this movie is because you're waiting for something bad to happen, and

nothing bad happens. It doesn't getting a bar fight, he bonds with him, the kid wins the pool game, and uh they get busted trying to trying to sneak up the stairs, and um, it's such a great scene, but it also plants the seed of uh something that comes back around later, which is he really gets Piste off because he thinks Rudy has sold him out. Yeah and read it on him. He didn't do it. And I love that part where Laura Lenny it's like he didn't

fucking do that, you know, Sheriff what's it called? Told me? And he's he's just he plays it so well because he's like, well, uh, and he says something dumb and she's just like, you're an idiot, Like she's just so over him at that point. Yeah, that's that's such a

real moment when um, I mean, I love that. That's always very interesting to me in movies where you have kind of an adult child relationship that gets beyond just the sort of niceties of like you know, authority and and and so on, where where they're really having a more of a connection as quote unquote equals, although they're not equals, but they meet each other where on this ground where it is possible for them to have arguments and get angry with each other and for one to

feel like they disappointed the other one and so on. And um, yeah, I love I of that moment where the various moments where he really he really treats the kid like an adult, for better and for worse, you know, yeah, in times where it's appropriate, in times where it's not so appropriate. But um, definitely like he's he's he's treating him as as somebody that he doesn't just have to talk down to. Yeah, it's up here. He can really

be honest with him. And it's great a lot though that first scene when he comes home from the bar when he had been out by himself and he goes to his room and the and the rant about yeah, and Rudy wakes up and he's like, you know, this used to be my room. He's actually want it back, you know. And then Rudy has one of the best lines in there when he's talking about what a ship town it is and uh, and he says, he's like, what do you even like it? Like, He's like, I

don't know, I like it. He's like, what do you like about it? And he goes, I don't know. My friends are here. I like the scenery. Yea, so great? So yeah, I love yeah. And and of course the rant that he's going on where he's like this this place is so small minded and all these people are so con chanel and they don't you know, there's a big world out there and I've seen a lot of it and these people know nothing of it and um,

and that's when he and and he says. It's a great line too though, when he says so, he's like, but your mom is the best. He's like, so you had some bad luck and he got some read luck. Yeah, two parents in one with the super mom. Yeah yeah, absolutely. Um. The other part that I loved when they went to smoke the joint was and this is one of those movie moments that just you can't plan for and it just happens and you use that take. But when the

moth lands on him. Yep, it's so cool. I didn't even remember that from from when I had seen it before, and yeah, watching it again, I was like, oh my god, Like that probably only happened that one take the way that Ruffalo was so in the scene and the character in the moment, Yeah, he could just take that and use it and not even there's a moment even later I'm where I think the moth kind of comes back. It lands on Laura Lennie for a second. It really

kind of flies off past Ruffalo's head. And at that point, they've they've kind of the scene is taken a turn and they's gotten a little more serious and he's really paying more close attention to what she's saying. He's intent on her, and so the moths just kind of goes

past him without acknowledgment. It's really really interesting the the way that even within that one scene, even within that kind of like semi improvised thing with the moth, that like it was all oriented around the character and the tone of the scene and his motivation from from moment to moment is just like really really great work. Yeah, and he didn't like if I was outside talking to Emily and a moth landed on me. I'd say, oh

my god, look exactly like I've got this moth. But he just sort of cares for it for a brief moment and then it goes away and he stays in character. Um did Lonegans mention that in the commentary? You know, I didn't. I don't believe so. But I'm also not sure if I got quite as far as that scene this time with the commentary, I don't think so. I think actually, um, he was talking about something something different, But I do know, like in in interviews, I think

it's it's come up once or twice. Yeah. Uh so let's chat about Broderick for a bit. Um, he's so great in this, and this is sort of the Matthew Broderick that I love the most. It reminded me a little bit of the election character. But you know, this guy that is doing all the wrong things as the new boss, but he's not aggressive, he's not coming in there and yelling at people, but he's just and she's

she said later, she's like, you're making everybody miserable. It's like he's he's enacting whatever his own internal like uh, dysfunction and and sort of neuroses or whatever like whatever that whatever that sense of Um, I don't know. He feels like he feels like in order to be a boss, he has to micromanage everybody obviously, or maybe it's a control he needs because his wife does not like him very much exactly. Yes, he's like domestically, maybe he feels powerless,

and so in the office that's like his domain. And so even though it's just like backwater branch that like nobody's really even paying that close of attention to, He's like, we're gonna get this thing up to like major market standards, and you know, I'm going to run a tight ship around here. And the fact that everybody has his attitude like, oh, it doesn't really matter. It's a small town. Like that's the thing we need to take care of, you know. And like if you're going to get your kid at

three fifteen, that is just just non negotiable. We can't have that, you know. Yeah, which is such the wrong way to come in. Uh, you you need to come in and say like you know, of course you can go get your kid, because that's important. Um. I love the part where they go to dinner later and they finally kind of are breaking bread and having a beer

together in a shot. And it's another way things that sort of left unsaid is when she goes, oh, well, you know, it's hormones with your wife and she's pregnant and it's a lot, and instead of really getting in to it, he just goes, now that it's not that. He's like, it's not it's it's more than that. But

we'll exactly and that's all you need to know. And that one little brief moment when she's in the office and you see her just kind of shove his hand away, you know they're they're gonna get divorced before she even has that kid, maybe, you know, and he kind of glances back at Sammy like, well you see what I have to deal with here, and again like that, even that little moment, it's like he has more of a connection with her than he does with his wife. It's

right next to him. Yeah. Yeah. So they start the affair, um, and you know she likes being bad for a little while. She uh, you can tell that she's she's partially like and she even has that one line where she's like this is unbelievable or whatever. After they have sex, like

that what I'm talking about. But she can't believe that she's in this situation where she's between these two guys that she doesn't even really like either one of them that much, and goes to the priest and asks about like she goes I feel like she goes to the priest because she needs somebody to tell her to stop. Yeah, she wants like some absolutism, you know, she doesn't want shades of gray. She just wants very clear, black and white, like you're in the wrong, You're going to hell if

you don't fix this. That that sort of thing. Which is interesting though, because she admonishes Terry for doing the same stuff, Like she can't stop it on her own. She knows it's the wrong thing to do, but she needs a priest to tell her, like, you can't do this, and he doesn't really do that. Actually, he doesn't really do that. And even after the conversation, she kind of keeps it going for a little while. So, yeah, you know, she's she's slowly moving in that direction, but it's just

gonna take time. It's it's not like anything that somebody else can sider her. She has to do it for herself, you know. She has to learn that lesson or make that decision to really um change things. Yeah, there's something about that role reversal with her being the irresponsible one and then as Terry is starting to be a little responsible that I think that's sort of such a key crux of the film that moment. It's hardly I mean, they're they're both enabling the other one to do that.

So she's had to be the single mom who's just ultra responsible, never lets loose, never never relaxes, is always just having to be on top of the next thing coming and um hit bye bye Terry being there. Now she's got a babysitter, right, she's got somebody that can like get him after school and you know keep keep yeah, maybe keep keep him occupied and and and entertained and um, you know, nothing too bad. It's going to happen presumably when it's just the it's just Terry and the kids.

So she can she can relax a little bit, even though not really, but she can rox a little bit and then you know, start up like these flings and just kind of like have that have that aspect of her life that she really hasn't had before. And on

the flip side with him. You know, you think about that scene very early on when he's just gotten home and he's in the bathtub, and it's it's just a quick scene, but he's in that blue tile bathroom with like the blue towels hanging on the towel hanger, and uh, you know, it's this moment of like serenity, of quietude, and he kind of looks around like he's on like a different planet, like how he grew up in. Its

probably the tubby grew up bathing himself in. Yeah, but he feels like a million miles away from that, you know, it all feels so strange. Well, one thing I've always noticed about like my child at home, which my parents still live in, is that going back as an adult, the room's always seems so much smaller than they did when you were a kid. I don't know if you had the same have the same phenomenon, but um, it is very much that thing if you can't go home again.

So whatever this bathroom meant to him at some other point in his life, it doesn't feel that same way now. And it's it's more like, I think it's less about what that room even is like when he's in it versus him just thinking like these he's in such ordered, clean, calm surroundings, and everything in his life before then has just kind of we get the feeling it's been chaos and disordered disarray. Yeah, and he you know, he operates in chaos, but I feel like and he operates as

someone who's continually sucking up. But I feel like he wants to be more. You don't see him strive to be more much. But I think one of the key sequences is when um, it kind of spells that out as the plumbing thing, Like he's trying to fix his plumbing upstairs and it really really upsets him that he can't do it, and then he has to call that plumber in. And that's just such a so symbolic I think of who he is is like I couldn't even do this one thing that I was trying to do

the right thing. It hurts his pride because I mean, that's you you get the sense that he's been kind of like a handyman, just like doing odd jobs a lot of the time for work and um, and so he takes a certain amount of pride in that, I'm sure and um, and it hurts him that, um, you know, here he is back with his big sister her and he wants to show that, hey, I can do stuff too,

I know how to do stuff. And she doubted him, you know, and she was like when we just call it plumber and he was like, he's gonna do the same thing I'm doing. But but he was wrong. He couldn't do it. And then when the plumber is there and he's downstairs smoking the joint, just like seething, but seething how Terry seethes like Mark. Mark Ruffalo is just so great in this there's so much below the surface.

The only time you really see him, uh let loose is when he kicks the ship out of Josh Josh Lucas, which was great, yeah, but also awful because it was right in front of Rudy. Yeah. That one, that one is definitely feels like he he crosses a line big time in that scene. And that is kind of the moment where you're like, man, maybe he really can't be trusted with the kid unfortunately, as great as he is

with a kid in so many other ways. And it's such a contrast to see like the quote unquote father figured that he is able, is capable of being for his kid versus you know, the Josh Lucas like, I don't know that kid like even though it's heartbreak clearly. I mean they even have like a little bit of a physical resemblance, I think, but he has that moment where, you like, the only thing he really ever says to him, he's like, there you saw me, see me? Great? Like,

are we done here? That was hard? It's brutal, um. And you know, the thing that's so frustrating when you watch this movie is that Laura Lenny. She's she's starting to get the one thing she wants more than anything, which is Terry to be in Rudy's life with some kind of consistency, uh and even some kind of influence,

even though she doesn't always agree with it. Uh, Like when she's early on, when you know, she doesn't think he gets picked up from school and it's frantic and goes and he's at the house building site together teaching him how to swing a hammer. Again, I don't think any dialogue there when she shows up. It's just that's what she wants more than anything. She wants Terry to be okay, and she wants Terry to be in her

life in some way and in her son's life. Yeah, that's that's what she wants more than anything in the world. And she feels like she's almost going to have that and then it just doesn't happen. And um, yeah that that that scene is interesting because the way it cuts, like she she kind of comes up behind them as you know, as he's started showing him how to swing the hammer and everything. She doesn't say anything, and then the next cut she's like back in the office again.

So I almost wondered, like, did she just kind of turn around and leave them alone and like not even acknowledge that She's Yeah, she's just kind of like, oh, this is fine. I don't have to like worry so much about He's got it. He's gotta handle on it, you know, he's I mean, she's she's very happy to see that moment between the two of them, so it kind of makes everything okay. Um, but yeah, I love that.

That's That's something that the movie does a number of times where rather than like hearing the next line that we all know is coming, we just cut to the next scene. There's you know, there's uh, like I said, there's there's many moments the one you talked about at the very beginning with the sheriff at the door and you know where he's like he's about to make his speech, he's about to say whatever he's gonna say, and there's

nothing to say, and so it just cuts away. And there's there's the moment where, um, it's the it's the date with with Bob, the first time that they're kind of back together, and there's just sort of like a little pause in their relationship and she goes to take a you know, a little simple wine or something, and then it just cuts to the two of them that afterwards, and in that cut, we we we can just fill in the whole evening how things progress from there and

um um. In an interview I read uh the Tenures on Thing where he was talking about going into a film for the first time as a director. He said, everything that I had written looked great on paper, and it read great, and he said, but I realized that every scene had a beginning, in middle and an end, and he said, so it kept. He said, it felt like they were I was always stopping and starting and stopping and starting, and there was no flow. And he

really credited his editor. I think with a lot of those choices, which was lopping off that end or maybe lopping off that beginning and letting the audience in fur the rest. And that's such a valuable lesson for UM and I bet you, I bet that helped us writing.

I mentally like from that point on as well, you know, oh yeah, I mean he talks on the commentary about there was a tremendous amount of material that was cut from the film because so much of it there would there would be a scene that he had written to make sure the audience understood this or that about the character, and maybe that entire scene could be replaced just with a glance with a certain look or a certain gesture that was nonverbal in a different scene while something else

was going on. But if we're paying attention as viewers, that will pick up on and so, you know, a lot of it ended up being redundant, even though as a writer it felt good to kind of fill in all those gaps and and just kind of make sure he covered all the bases. When you're thinking about it as a film, and there is so much that can be done visually on verbally and so on. Um so much of that material could be could be lopped out, and it is very very elegantly done the way um

the film is edited. I mean that's something that for instance, during the big initial lunchtime conversation scene, the way that the rhythm of that scene, the way it's edited. Suddenly it's very like kinetic in a way that most of the rest of the film never is. It's much more still and calm, and he likes to sit on shots for a longer time. But with that conversation and argument is kind of like heating up, and Terry is really nervous because he knows he's got to like drop this

bombshell at any moment now. Um, the pacing of the editing and the way that he's overlapping dialogue and clearly using different takes and so on to kind of construct this scene that never quite happened the way it happens on screen. When they were actually performing it. He says that there were like four minutes in the middle of that scene somewhere that they just lopped out because again, like emotionally, they were already where they needed to be

without having to do any of that stuff. So, yeah, man, this makes me want to write again. A movie like this really inspires me. So let's talk a little bit about the music. The there's a great mix of classical pieces, notably Bach, the very famous one performed by Yo Yo Ma, that cello piece, and then um, a lot of the Steve Earle and I think Loretta Lynn and just some sort of fringe country stuff and it really all works

well together somehow. And it doesn't seem like those two things would fit together great, but um, yeah, you wouldn't wouldn't work but one one sort of you know, you could say classical is a little bit more high brow and countries a little bit more just like popular. Um, but like you said, it works great. It shows the two tones in a way that the film is working on, Like there is this small town, folksy kind of feeling

to it it. But at the same time, you know, the film is taking a little bit more of like a cosmic view of things, and I think that's where some of the classical stuff comes in to give it just another another another tone, another level um of feeling into kind of um, I don't know, just just bring our minds somewhere else, because I feel like if this were all country and all kind of um, you know,

diegetic music. Let's say he wouldn't have the same feeling nearly as as having this kind of like outside classical music that's almost a little bit more of a commentary on things or it just it comes from a different place than than the country music does. But they both have their place in the film. Yeah, and when he

chooses to use the classical pieces are really impactful too. Um, Like the last the last set of sequences, like the last maybe ten or twelve minutes of this movie are just so beautiful when he when he goes to the cemetery and like hikes up that hill. Um. I got this script, yes, today, and I was reading it and it was all very much written to direct, you know, which is a very different thing than just writing a

script to submit. You can be a lot more flowery and you can just add a lot more stuff in there.

But he talks about walking up the hill to the grave sites, putting his hands on the graves, the gravestones, and that's where you've got that great classical vocal piece, and the sun's kind of going down, but it's not you know, you see the sort of cat's low level cat skills in the background, but it's not set up to be all right, this is going to be the most beautiful shot you've ever seen, and we're gonna have

this great pink sunset. The movie is very subtly beautiful, I think, but not because he's trying to wow you with shots. Yeah, I mean, I think it's it's beautiful in the way that a place that is beautiful is beautiful to the people who live there, right, yeah, man, so you're not. It's it's not just that like you're the tourists from out of town who's like taking all

these postcard pictures. It's more something that it almost becomes a part of you, this natural beauty, and you can still notice it at times, but it's it's a little bit more subdued, even though you do enjoy it. Um. It just it just makes the backdrop of your life as opposed to like the main attraction. So it doesn't

really call attention to itself in that way. Even if it's I mean, you can tell him that scene, maybe he's thinking like, oh, this is like a really nice, peaceful resting place for them, Like at least they have this, you know, it could be could be worse, there's that there's that scene, um, and I only kind of noticed at this time when he's initially coming into town on the bus he's driving by stuff, that he goes past that cemetery and he kind of he looks out the

window at it, and even though there's no words spoken, we can kind of assume because we've already seen uh, Sammy there, that it's the same place and so on. But UM, yeah, I really like that scene. That's another scene that by another director in another film could be very very cliched or overwrought, but another just right in this film. I think he would have talked to the gravestones,

you know, like it could have been that on the nose. Um, what you just mentioned that when he was going into town. There's something about the way that these characters feel so real in this space. Um, there's just it's hard to define.

I don't think you can even direct it necessarily, But when he's walking down that sidewalk earlier, or when he's smoking that joint in the alley, you get this feeling that he has smoked a hundred joints in that alley, or had a hundred, you know, a thousand Budweisers in that maybe same barstool that he was sitting in. It just feels like these people have grown up there without being on the nose about it. It's so lived in and I don't know how they managed to pull that

off because of magic. I think, yeah, it's it's magic. And I mean even in terms of like the shooting, Um, you know, this being a smaller budget film, that's being a first film and so on independent. Um, I don't think they had like the luxury of a ton of time, right. I think I think every day there in that indie situation of like we have to get all these shots.

There's even there's even a moment on the commentary where, uh, it's the moment where he's trying to fix the plumbing and uh, the pipe kind of comes out of the ground and it's sprayser skirt that she's just kind of put on, right, and uh and Longagan on the commentary

talks about we only had like four of those. You know, it was reversible, so we had to one color to the other color and uh, and and like even in terms of like the cutting of the scene whatever whatever, it's like he has to pick because it was the other color skirt and the other two takes right, so it's you really only get like two times of two

takes to to do it. And you know they were having trouble with like the water coming out of the pipe correctly and everything, and like it's just one of those things where you realize all the things that he's having to juggle just on very real practical levels at the same time that they're trying to do this very subtle, emotional,

heartfelt thing. Um. And it really is just it's just super impressive that despite all that, you know, despite shooting had a sequence and all the rest of it, that it just feels like the relationship between the two of them is so real and solid and genuine. Um. He he talks a little bit about how, in terms of the scheduling of the scenes, he didn't want to have any of the major big set pieces too early in

the schedule. Um. I think I think it was either the lunchtime scene or one of the other kind of big blowout scenes in the movie was originally scheduled to be like the first thing in week two, and he had the a D moving back to like end of week three so that they could at least, you know, build that rapport a little bit before they had to

jump into the deep end. Um. But it's yeah, I mean he despite the fact that they're all under pressure at every moment to like get the shot, move on to the next setup, and so on, do it is in his few takes as needed and so on. Um that it's it's still has this like lived in feeling as if the crew in the cast have been hanging out there for like months on end and just like getting to know the place, getting to know the people, getting comfortable with everything. Uh. It's it's it's very interesting

how how that all manages to kind of coalesce. Yeah. I think sometimes, man, there's there is a bit of magic that happens and you just can't these movies come along that just it all comes together. Uh and and a lot of times they are these little indies, um that are so dear to my heart. And you know, first movie as a writer director is just pitch perfect. Everything about this movie is perfect. There's not a single

false note. No, there's there's no moments where you're kind of like, oh, that's like a first director thing to do or yeah, there's there's no like there's no shots that are just you know, here's my big like steadicam one take thing that doesn't really need to be here, but I'm just gonna show off as a director. There's none of that. It's not flashy. Um. And the kids too, it's to bite off such a um, such a substantial role for a child in the first movie. Is that's

tough to pull off. Everybody would tell you, don't do it right, don't do it, but it's yeah, he just he just he nailed it in every way, such a beautiful movie. Um. I encourage you, Casey to read the script or at least read parts of it. The I'm gonna read a bit from the end and this is after and by all means read that whole last scene as it's written. Like. I don't know if this was transcribed afterward or not, but he's very much has every

single word sort of nailed down. Um. But after they embrace and he gets on the bus, um, Sammy you know, waves goodbye to him, and then she gets in her car for that last bit and that same sort of shot driving into town and she's late for work. This is one thing you got to remember for this part. She's blown off work again, and it says interior Sammy's car moving day. The morning sunlight flickers through the windshield

into the car. As Sammy drives along toward work, she passes the town hall clock and sees that it's She drives her damp cheek with a forearm and rolls down her window to let the morning breeze blow through, squaring her shoulders a little. She drives through town at a slow and easy pace. That's great. Boom, So they have it?

Do you have? Like there has been changed? There has been She's learned to like ease up a little bit, you know, it's not hearing back to work, and of course her situation with the boss has changed, so she probably knows she has a little bit of that leeway. But even if she didn't, you get the sense that she's kind of reoriented herself a little bit, and she's no longer going to be quite as tense and you know,

just like yeah, panic from moment to moment. She can kind of slow down experienced life again, not just as this never ending series of like tasks and things that she has to worry about all the time, but really just like feel the sunlight coming in through the window and enjoy the music and see the town and you know the cliche stuff stopping smaller roses all that, but it really is true. Yeah, and that's when Steve Orrel

comes in. Uh. And then the very beginning of the movie, you know, the very first line, I think this is uh, there's like there's something about what are you doing the moment you die? And they get they get hit by this truck and you know the mom It opens the movie with the mom just saying they're clearly like coming back home. I guess after a date. She goes, why do they always put braces on teenage girls at the exact moment whether the most self conscious about their appearance,

And it's just such a real moment. And he goes, I don't know. And then four seconds later they're dead. Yeah. It's so um the way the way you would think it would probably go down, like yeah, there there, you have no idea they're about to die. They're just making small talk in the car from right, Not even small talk. I mean, it's it's a genuine thing like she she had this thought pop into her head. Yeah, and and

he um. His response is kind of like, I don't know, like that's a good point and and then it's all over and um, yeah, it's interesting that I read one one review I said that the kind of framing device of the film of the parents death to him felt maybe a little bit overdetermined, like everything that follows is just cast in the shadow of this happened. Therefore their relationship is like this, or their lives turn out this way. Yeah,

I don't know. That's yeah, it's a big it's a big deal when your parents die in a car wreck like that. I mean, like that, that's just that's just the way it is. I mean, I can I do understand his point that if the same exact thing happened to someone else, maybe they still grow up to be fully functioning, well adjusted adult that you know, move past it.

Let's saying the age that they were at and everything, and and just the fact that the two of them had to go through this together, and um, there doesn't seem to have been I mean, we don't really learn how what happened to them after that. It seems like

they did stay in that small town. It's not really clear exactly who raised them after that, right, there doesn't Yeah, yeah, and I think you know, they may have shot that, who knows, But I think a lesser writer would have put that stuff in there, or in the in the scene right before the wreck in the car, he would have.

A lesser writer would have been way more on the nose about like talking about the kids in a certain way that really kind of gives you a bunch of information about who they are, rather than this just sort of beautiful moment about talking about braces and how funny it is in life. You know how cruel it is in life to get the braces when you are self conscious. And they don't have to say the names of the

kids or anything. It's it's so part of who they are in every moment they're living that obviously it goes without saying that's who she's talking about, but she doesn't have to say it that way, which is great. It's wonderful. All right, dude, I got nothing else. See this movie everyone. It's on Amazon Prime right now. Yes, it's yeah, it's on Prime. It's a nice like HD transfer. It looks considerably better than the DVD. Um, I've got to sign

DVD from Mark Ruffalo. No way. Yeah, my friend's amazing. My friend worked with him on which one was that I can't remember. My friend Stacy, who's as a wardrobe supervisor, worked with him and told she knew it was one of my favorites and said, my friend Chuck is just like you can count on me as one of his favorite movies. And she brought in the DVD and he signed it to me personally, and it was very very sweet. Oh that's great. That's so many many many years ago. Man,

before he was a story. I mean, that's yeah, yeah, I'm gonna dig that thing up. And I think rewatching this, I mean, Ruffalo was still great, but it was almost like rediscovering in a way, just like how amazing he was right out of the gate. Um. He's made a number of films that I really like, but I still kind of wish that there were more films like this that he was able to do that are just still character driven and small and perfect. And I mean, it's

this is it's hard to top this, right. So I understand that careers move on and people take on bigger roles and so on, and like I said, I mean, he's he's done a number of things that I really like, but at the same time, I still sort of feel like man like, there's there's even more potential there um that that I hope he will. He will be able to um to tap into you know, in in the and and what's what's left of his career. Yeah, he's got a long way to go and he's made all

that marble juice. So that's right. You got to be able to do some some small stuff now, right. Uh So I agree, Man, let's continue with long again. I have not seen those other movies, so that's perfect. Um Margaret is um is that next? Yeah, Margaret is next. And there's there's a lot, a lot to say about

that film, a lot of the backstory. I don't know if you're you're aware of much of the difficulty and even getting that film made, uh ended up in court with re cuts and arguments with the studio and all

kinds of stuff. And it actually it will. It will play into how we watched the film, because there's a theatrical version that I think is about two and a half hours long, and there's the director's cut that's a little over three hours, and and they're not even it's not even that there's thirty minutes more scenes in the longer version. It's essentially like a different movie. The there there's different sequences, there's different takes, there's different music. Um,

the sound mixing is is extremely different. He goes for this like altmnesque kind of twelve tracks of dialogue, all overlapping kind of thing in in the longer cut. In the theatrical version, all that stuff is rained in and it's much more just about one character. So both versions

are available. Ideally we would maybe watch both, but but I know that's a tall order, so maybe maybe we'll just go with the the extended version because I really is like his vision of the film and the one that he was in court for multiple years battling to get this thing out there the way he wanted it to. Um, So yeah, that'll that'll be next up. Sweet. All right, thanks brother. This is as I say, you're one of my favorite people to talk movies with. Man and I

really really really uh enjoy these a great deal. So yeah, me too, brother. So let's uh thank everyone else for listening, and uh, I encourage you all to watch this film and go ahead and get Margaret the Director's Cut going and Manchester by the Sea and get prime for those, and I'll have you back in and whatever five or six weeks. Awesome, looking forward to it all right, See Buddy See a Man movie. Brush is produced editing an engineered by Ramsey Yutt here in our home studio at

Pont City Market, Atlanta, Georgia. For I Heart Radio. For more podcasts For my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.