The Big Picture - ‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere’ and the ‘Music Biopic’ Mount Rushmore

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

Sean and Amanda are joined by Chris Ryan and Yasi Salek to head over to 'State Trooper' town and cover Scott Cooper’s ‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere,’ starring Jeremy Allen White. They unanimously agree that the movie is overwhelmingly unsuccessful, then dive into why it lacks dramatic stakes (1:42). Later, they hypothesize its box office potential and Academy Awards chances (36:20) before having a conversation about music biopics at large, where they share their personal favorites, as well as ones they hope to never see made (44:00). Finally, Sean and Amanda briefly cover Mary Bronstein’s new film ‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’ (1:00:48), before Bronstein herself joins the show. She walks through the long and arduous process of getting the movie made, speaks on why she needed to make this movie and the urgency behind her message, and shares insight on her deeply personal connection to the material (1:07:46). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Chris Ryan, Yasi Salek, and Mary Bronstein Producer: Jack Sanders Unlock an extra $250 at linkedin.com/thebigpicture Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennacy. And this is the big picture of conversation show about the boss. Today on the show, Chris Ryan and Yassie Sallick, join Amanda and me to talk about Springsteen, deliver me from nowhere, the latest in a long line of musician biopics. This one's about Bruce Springsteen and the making of the album Nebraska, which you can see adorned on Chris Ryan's long-sleeved t-shirt right now. I'm gatekeeping where I got this. Oh, okay.

Was it the internet? Later in this episode, I'll be joined by Mary Bronstein. She is the writer-director of If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You, which is an extraordinary showcase for the absolute terror of being a mother in this world and features an incredible performance from Rose Byrne. Amanda and I will talk about the movie a little bit after our conversation about Springsteen as well. Stick around for that. but now let's go to state trooper town.

Deliver me from nowhere. This episode is presented by LinkedIn Ads. Sometimes marketing gets wasted on the wrong people. Like if you see an ad for movie-themed dog sweaters when you don't even have a pet. Reach exactly who you need with LinkedIn ads with a network of 130 million decision makers they can help you target by job title,

industry, company size, or even skills. It's one of the reasons LinkedIn ads generates the highest B2B return on ad spend of all online ad networks. Seriously, all of them. Try it out. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com slash the big picture. Terms and conditions apply. Deliver me from nowhere. This is a new feature film from writer-director Scott Cooper, who CR has been holding his Cooper stock for roughly 15 years. The film is based on

Deliver Me From Nowhere, which is a 23 nonfiction book written by Warren Zanes about the making of Nebraska in this particular period roughly 1981 in Bruce Springsteen's life in the aftermath of the River album. And

Jeremy Allen White stars in it as Bruce. Jeremy Strong appears in the film. Paul Walter Hauser, Odessa Young as a composite character of several women in Bruce Springsteen's life. Why don't you? Why don't I start with you? You're the host of Bansplaine.

The last time you were here, we talked about a music biopic, right? We did. What is it called? Stuncasting? You're stun casting? Better. No, you're not stun casting. You were also a Christmas episode.

But that was also, it was Betterment and Paddington. That's right. No, that was separate. The last time she was here was Paddington and Bridget Jones' diary. So do not type Cassie. It's sort of an artist's biopic in a different way. She contains multitudes. Sure.

You're not stuncasting. You're a category. expert. And that's why you're here. Thank you so much for having me. What did you think of delivered me from nowhere? Okay. I'm sorry. No, before we even talk, I can see your notes and I can just see all of the bullet points. This is single spaced. Okay, I'm challenging myself to begin with a compliment. Yeah. Okay. Good. As you know, leave with love. Yes, lead with love. I loved a better man. And I do love and admire when people try. to do something different than the typical thing in music.

Why are you speaking so slowly? That is not what the first sentence on. Give me the notes and let me read the first bullet point. Let me read it. I felt like I was like, okay, it's cool. It's not a cradle to the grave. I genuinely thought that perhaps they were trying to do something artsy with the way it was shot, with the black.

and white flag. I don't, was it effective? No. But did they try? Yes. So that is my initial compliment. When you're with Annex Plathom, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at amex.ca.ca slash yamex. Are you trying to not get aggregated right now? No, I was like I told you, I'm challenging myself to begin.

That isn't the goal of this show. Well, unfortunately, this film has pushed me into becoming a well-actually guy because I have two pages of well-actually. I'm sorry I just saw that one section of the notes is women in all caps and then there's one bullet point and then an empty second bullet point

right because I was like wow this podcast has two lead females in it and there's simply one and one at all female character in this movie is a composite there's Gabby Hoffman the mom oh sure yeah there's also

John Landau's wife Right, and she puts on Moistrising cream at one point? We've all been there. Chatting with our spouse. Maril's ship star. Amanda, what did you think of delivering me from nowhere?

You absolutely undersold this dog. Like, you saw this at Telly Ride before all of us, and you were like, well, it didn't work for me. And there's, as I said to you, it didn't work for me and there's, this is not a movie, which this is straight up, not a movie. The three of us saw it together. Which was really pleasant.

and I don't want, I'm sorry to make light of a film that is, if it's about anything, is I guess about depression. But we were giggling throughout at the absolute silliness of the script and the, the cliche nature of this movie. Like, in some ways, I'm almost grateful for it if we're going to do a compliment, if we're going to lead with love or, you know, silver lining, this takes a lot of the pressure and hatred away from Walk the Line, which is a movie I actually like because this film was made after Walk Hard and is remaking the Walk Hard cliches like almost to a scene while they've already been pointed out cinematically. So now I feel like I can just like Walk the Line and be like, well, it is what it is, but this is silly. I thought

this was silly. It's tough having seen the movie with them because I can't act like I didn't snort laugh when Flaring O'Connor's collected story showed up. I'll put it this way. This is one of my favorite albums. This movie is about the making Nebraska. Nebraska is one of my favorite albums. I really, really like Bruce Springsteen a lot. I think there are people who know more about him and like him more. Over the last couple of days, I've been reading the book as has Yasi. So I've reversed myself and what was going on at this time. The early 80s specifically is one of my favorite periods of pop music to read about and to hear about and to see depicted. And I think it's just one of the hardest things they would have had to have done is pull off Jeremy Allen White

having a convincing Bruce Springsteen impersonation and the singing voice and all the playing and stuff like that. And I thought that was going to be the biggest bar. But it turns out the biggest bar was maybe there just wasn't a movie in this and maybe it was just like a cool idea at a cool time can i just disagree yeah of course not sorry to be earnest goes to camp but i really believe that music biopics can always be good and i just that's why i'm so let down when they're bad because i think this is like one of the most compelling and rich things in the world is the mythology of a musician that people have connected with so much. And again, I do this for a living. Like, I find a story everywhere. Like, it's wonderful stuff. And that's why I'm always so,

I think there was a movie there. You read the book, right? The book, again in my notes, I was just like, thing after thing where I was like, you just left this on the table, man. Like, there's direct. Can you give me an example of that? Because I haven't read the book. Well, so Warren's, the thesis of the book, I'm sorry, I'm going to cut you off, is, and is this is the biggest left turn in pop music culture pop music history is that this guy is on the precipice of stardom he's got

these songs bubbling up that will become born in the USA but what he decides to do is so radical and you know even for given who he was and given the platform that he had pretty revolutionary to choose to do this

it's like a reverse going electric right for Dylan and that's not what this movie is about at all it's about your dad and depression and trying to, like, deal with, like... And can we get the technagogical specs exactly right to make this movie... You guys heard of a portrait studio? It was a real, like, hey, fellow guitar center, guys.

Let me list out every piece of equipment. I just... Okay, let me ask you guys a question. When you go into a music biopic, what do you want from it? If I wasn't doing this for a living, I wouldn't be going to music biopics. I mean, that's a long-standing point of view from me. But if you were going and you were going to get what you wanted from it, What would it do?

I think a deeper understanding of what the artist is trying to accomplish and understanding what the dramatic stakes are for the artist at that moment in time. I think that this movie is like really sincerely trying to present what the filmmakers believe are dramatic stakes, which is that it's this huge left turn and that you can see all of the other characters are worried about the future of Bruce Springsteen's stardom. Maybe some of that is his artistic merit and popularity, but mostly it's money, right? that this is like an art versus commerce narrative, yeah. I don't think the movie really communicates a lot of that stuff well. But this is a, it is literally a movie about an artist at work.

I think actually the artist at work stuff, it's a testimony to why this is so hard to do. Because you know, even if you haven't read the Zane's book, that Bruce Springsteen was inspired by Flannery O'Connor. He was inspired by Badlands. He was inspired by Night of the Hunter. He was inspired by this kind of desperate, stark, gothic, pure. of American popular culture. And that's cool, but it is not, to your point, terribly cinematic. And it obviously commits the crazy sin of, like,

let's put two of the most important movies of the 20th century on screen. Psychotic. So we can tell you, like, we can show you clearly how this movie is not as good as that movie. I don't have the same relationship to Bruce. And I think one of the reasons why, when I came out of my screening, you tell you're out and we did the pot about the movie, I was, I would say, there were, a few, there were very few dissenters coming out of that screening.

It was like a hot premiere at that festival. I literally, Oprah Winfrey was standing behind me in line to get into the movie. Like, Bruce was there. It was a very warm crowd, an older crowd of that festival. And everybody came out being like, Jeremy Allen White killed it. And God, I love some of those songs. And I think that was just enough for people. And I do think that that may be enough for people with this movie.

But the one thing that it does is what you were describing, which is that Jeremy L. White, like, does actually nail Bruce Springsteen being Bruce Springsteen on stage. The two times that this movie leaves Earth are when they play Born to Run in front of... Which they do in the first five minutes. Literally looks like they sold out like a stadium and have all these extras and the band is the East Street band. You're just like, I can't... That guy looks like Max Weinberg and is drumming like him. Some of them are from Greta Van Fleet, I believe.

Really? And then the other moment is when he's playing born in the USA and the studio. That is the one scene. where I was like, why would you show it to me if I cannot have it? If I can't have it. It's a fascinating choice to do that, but it almost feels like an act of cruelty to the audience. And I think Cooper is trying to say something.

He's trying to make you feel the way that everyone else in Springsteen's cohort felt in that sequence, right? That's like, we all know that you are about to be Bruce Springsteen. Why can't you just go there? Sure. But you shouldn't, like, punish the audience to make your point. And it does feel like they're kind of punishing you in this movie by not letting you have the fun

of a great Bruce Springsteen moment. Right. Well, and the movie also doesn't deliver on what it is that makes Bruce Springsteen that the movie's interested in, want to do that. And it doesn't develop the character and the motivation, so you aren't paid off for being punished by being like, okay, but at the end we got this amazing thing.

Instead, it literally goes to some, you know, record printing store and it's like, I'm going to do the grooves differently or whatever. Yeah. That, honestly, I would have taken like 40 more minutes of the grooves over some of the flashed memories. Oh, it was a double-up in question mark. And so, like, I think that kind of gets into an interesting part about this where, you know,

Complete Unknown was really interesting because obviously, like, they do that almost as a jukebox musical where, like, you get all these Dylan performances and all these iconic moments in his career. This one almost seemed to be resisting Springsteen's music, and it felt a little bit more like two guys coming towards the end of their lives who kind of are dictating how they want to be remembered and what they wish they would have said over probably how it actually

worked and how it was actually happening. And that speaks to their relationship with the composite character that's Faye Romano who's like Bruce Springsteen's girlfriend at the time. A woman who stands in for he's emotionally unavailable you know? Do you think

it's worth it to be a terrible partner in service of making a great piece of art. Are you pro that? I feel like you've been on record about that. I feel like I've definitely enjoyed a lot of art that happened by terrible partners. It's made by terrible partners.

I mean, think of Neil McCauley. Not the best partner in the world, the awesome thief. That's right. But yeah, like I just think this thing that I love about Bruce Springsteen is how he makes very specific detailed storytelling into like

universal themes and universal emotions and this movie felt like the inverse of that. It was a very generic story and a very generic scenes. Like you get to the end of scenes and you'd be like what was that scene about? That seems about him looking out at a lake or that seems about him driving back and forth somewhere. It didn't ring true

because it wasn't, right? Like again, I was so mad after I read the book because I was like, well, okay, if it's not going to be the platonic ideal of music biopic, which is the Bob Dylan one, which was like, this is fine, right? This is the best possible version of this. Then you have to, like, show me what the inner workings of this man was when he was making. Bruce Springs, he lived with his grandparents. He says point blank in this book, Nebraska is about my grandparents, not my parents. Did we see one grandma, one grandpa in there? His aunt died right before he was born. It was like a specter of a ghost, upon,

on his life that created, talks about, where was the, you know, like, if you're, if you're Nebraska head, where was the aunt's ghost? Yeah. Where was the ants ghost? I would have rather the ants ghost. Paranormal activity. Sure. Out in the pine barrens? Alan Vega and Bruce Springsteen knew each other. Yeah. They had met before Nebraska was made. They had a friendship. What did we get? A scene where he's laying on the floor blasting suicide, pan to the album cover, suicide roadie walks in what you listen into boss

it's called suicide well the problem with that is Chris we were talking about this a little bit yesterday a movie like this which is actually quite interested in the specific details that people like us like to cite when we talk about artists and what they do is when you show that to people

who care and already know it feels like obvious bad storytelling and when you show it to a general audience it's just baffling it makes no sense if you don't have context for suicide or Night of the Hunter, what does that even really mean in the movie? I mean, I would say that like the basic storytelling in this movie besides that's Bruce Springsteen

and you know, you know, born in the USA is boring and coherent to the point that I turned to you 90 minutes into the movie and was like, who is that guy about one of the main characters? And you were like, I have no idea. And I'll be honest, right now I forgot to Google it. So who was that guy? I'm trying to remember because I'm like, which character? It was like it was more than once. It was like a friend.

Oh, it's the guy who's driving him. Yeah. It's the guy who's driving him. You want to hear about an amazing filmic detail that they could have put in the thing? The entire drive, that friend had gone through a breakup, was in a terrible state and was holding a huge teddy bear. Wouldn't I have liked to see that? I'm just like, Sean said that I couldn't have directed and written a better version of this. He did say it?

And I do feel like I could have. I didn't understand. I mean, you just have no background whatsoever in filmmaking. I didn't. It wasn't because I think that you're not good at the things that you do. The bars a little bit. This is not a successful movie. Like, it really doesn't work. And what enervated me about it when I saw it was that it is attempting to be the opposite of Walk Hard. And it inadvertently commits every sin. Like, the flashback stuff is so bad. It's so bad. It happened in the first five minutes also. Yes. You and I turned to each other and you were just like, uh-oh. Well, I remember we had a conversation about. the trailer and I think I said oh but that'll probably only be like

the first 10 minutes of the movie is like a flashback to Bruce Springsteen's childhood it kind of sets up what like complicated feelings he has about this older generation of people and I did not expect it to be at least half the film and Stephen Graham's on a heater right now I understand it honestly it's just a

kind of a total waste of Stephen Graham and Gabby Hoffman if you're going to make a movie and put them in it you might as well and it's like weirdly like Gabby Hoffman's on the phone a lot calling him but is not appearing. So I almost wonder whether that's stitched together. Like, we need to make this work. So we'll do ADR. Gabby Hoffman's calling Jeremy Allen White stuff. That's like, also like, did you need to shoehorn in a love story? You had a love story. It was him and his manager. You know, like what's the most beautiful, one of the most, there's so many threads

you could have pulled that would have made a better movie. But like the beauty of Don Landau having been a critic and like rescuing Bruce by becoming a second manager and always believing in him and like that they I think they like glanced at that a couple times yeah they don't really over explain that and maybe like that might have been helpful context for audiences that they actually have a very unique dynamic that being said that would make it a movie about an artist and a manager I mean that also is not a movie like there's something very beautiful about the relationship that those guys still have like I really think that's quite a good. cool that somebody who's basically responsible for making sure that the business works

understands his artist's creativity and greatness and that he's always been a great advocate because he has a background in understanding artists but that's also not a movie i'm i'm that's a that's a commerce story you know that's about being in the middleman that protecting you from the influence of a record label and like it's not even really that severe like the david crumholt's character that critical scene when they play Nebraska for him yeah and he's like he's like it's all like this And it's just like, ah, this is not great. I was like, what are you going to do? Like, he doesn't have enough power to tell Bruce Springsteen

and go back in the studio. They just kind of accept it. And then the great triumph of the movie is like, this movie, or this album didn't have a single on it, but it still went to number three on the charts and has gone on to be iconic. And it's like, I know, we know. Great tidbit in the book.

We came to the movie. Where John Lando was like, and Bruce called me after, and he never asks about the charts, and he asked about the charts because he actually did care. And I was like, that could have been a good thing to put in for me to understand for Atlantic City. You know, like there was first music video, right?

His first music video, that would have been interesting. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that would have been interesting if they had done basically a docu-drama version of this. I think another huge challenge to this. And I was trying to like build like a similar to Yassie, like, we would love, like try and make a defense or case for this movie. And I was like, okay, so here's my case is not unlike Bruce Springsteen watching Badlands on TV one night and he gets inspired by the stark weather story. Scott Cooper is watching Badlands and decides to make a Maliki impressionistic kind of

wandering version of the Bruce Springsteen story that deals with memory and trauma and the natural world around Bruce Springsteen and there's a lot of great scenery but the narrative of itself is kind of in the background. But that's a huge challenge.

If that would have taken so much more of a leap to be like this isn't really about Bruce Springsteen, this is about art and inspiration. Yeah. And if you do it that way, then please leave the like, you're an idiot exposition at home.

That was, like, you either do that and leave it pretty, like, challenging and interesting and open to interpretation. But they were just hammering you in the head with this exposition, as we talked about, John Landau talking to his wife, a departure. Yeah. It is, yeah. I think that's funny.

The intentions of the movie. I just kept waiting, like, is she? She's going to get to speak on the last cut to her? She's in the Mark Barron cut. Mark Barron, by the way, best part of the movie in my opinion. Like, all of a sudden, the movie came alive. I was like... He has three lines of dialogue.

And it was the best three lines. Well, for a while, I thought it was a little bit of a bit that he was just there and he wasn't talking. And I liked that, you know? There was a little bit of restraint. I get the impression a lot was cut out from his performance. I was kind of like there's two images from this movie that I really want to take over this memes.

one is the gummer, was it Mamie Gummer? Yeah, Mamie Gummer. Doing her creams at night, and I want to have it be like... No, I think it's Grace. Is it Grace? Oh, is it Grace?

I think it's Grace. I don't think it's maybe. I'm so sorry. Apologies. Yeah, I apologize. Her doing her creams at night, it's like me explaining to my wife the Chauncey Bill of Stoker.

And then the other is just like Jeremy Strong listening to the headphones and it's just like the watch starts playing. I'm glad you. Those are good. Those are really good memes. Can I ask you guys a question, a real question? What are questions you've been asking before this?

Absolutely false ones. Where do you land on VO in general in films? I'm very into Vio, and all I kept thinking... Like voiceover? Yes, voiceover. Was like, oh, you could have done a lot. I think it depends on the quality of the writing and this script suggests that the quality of the writing

would not have been strong. This is a deeply overwritten movie. You can tell when it's... Wholesale from his book. But it's part of the text of the movie and the script and is being used as a device. And then you can also tell, right. And then there's a lot of times where it's like,

wow, we didn't have anything. So now we're trying to paper over extra with some voiceover. I just feel like people avoid it because they feel it's hack or something when it can really... Well, there are a lot of examples where you can see movies have been Frankenstein back together with the aid of voiceover. This is such a perspective-driven film about a person alone. And it could have helped.

I don't know. To me, I think you're right, ultimately, that there's just not really a true dramatic thrust to this movie that makes it feel like anything is really on the line. Well, I think to your point about, like, the crowd at Talley Ride, and you said it was an older crowd, I was talking about this with Craig Horleback as we were coming into the studio,

because he had seen it last night, and he was like, man, I just think that generation just are never going to get over their dads. Yeah, and the idea that, like, I was actually pretty surprised. I don't think I read a lot about what this movie was about. So when we get like two thirds in and I'm like, is this movie about him being diagnosed with depression?

Like I was kind of surprised, but also like, I'm like, that is not what I thought we were getting at all. And they don't even see the word depression until the title card after the film where they're like, he's struggled with depression his whole life,

but with help and hope, like he's figured it out. Never again without help. But it is, there is still like that generation of people who were around Springsteen's age who were like, I did not,

therapy was not popular. Like, I did not. I was just saying this to them right before you got here, that there is like a therapy 1.0 quality to the Bruce Springsteen experience. I really respect that about him and that he has spent the last 20 years

kind of like re-examining his success and the things that he's done in his life that he's not happy with. He's made like several documentaries now about the makings of his albums. He's written books. Like, he is really going for a team. Listen, that is wonderful for him.

I am a disciple of therapy. I believe in it and I believe in SSRIs and it is bad for art. Like, it is great for the artist and really, really boring for art. And we have seen it again and again. It is bad for the tension. It is bad for the dialogue. It like for literally the things that are said. Scott Cooper gives one of those welcome to, you know, deliver me from nowhere speeches,

which went on for so long that I don't think voiceover would have been good. Yesy. And, you know, he says, he says, Trump. like twice in that introduction and again it's like the point of therapy is to be able to like name and deal with your trauma it's amazing for a human being but like it obviates the art so it's this is this is this is bad therapy culture movie I used to think that probably one of the more difficult things you would do if you were making a movie about music or making a movie about a writer would be to depict then convincingly making that thing so

whether it would be fictional, like the wonders in that thing you do. It's like, that song has to be good enough that you want to listen to it 10 times in the movie, or if it's Dylan and just Salome has to convince you that he's Dylan. But I think the thing that I really struggle with is in this movie was watching someone get inspired because that's something I think you can do effectively. There's a really beautiful episode of The Bear, I think, from season two, but it might have been three where Sydney goes all over Chicago and tries all these different foods and starts like writing down in her notebook like the different like

ideas and architecture and how that's influencing what she wants to do with someone for cooking and so it's possible to hit it but this was kind of like he opens flannery o'connor's book reads two paragraphs and then starts writing down like it was like one to one it was like everything was a one to one are we allowed to talk about the notebook now yes i mean just like you're a person of free will Well, I mean, so much of this structural making of this movie rests on Bruce Springsteen writing in a notebook and then you seeing what he's writing. Double album? Question mark. Why? Question mark. And then my personal favorite, which is when he's writing the lyrics to Nebraska, and they're in third person, and then he crosses out the he and writes I and crosses out the him and writes me. It reminded me a lot of the whiteboard in a quiet place, which has been mean to do. death or sort of like, they can't hear, but why?

But we're like two years into the apocalypse. Yeah, it's just not good writing. I don't know that there is a way to do that if you're not going to make a purposefully impressionistic film. Like, the bear can get away with that because that's a show that, one, is episodic and has a lot of time to tell its story. And two, is pretty audacious in the way that it changes the kind of storytelling it's doing episodes to episodes.

Sometimes it doesn't work as well as others, but it's cool. I'm going to say also it's run out there a little bit in terms. And, you know, I personally have run out of patience of watching Jeremy Allen White have demons, but not say a word about them on screen. I wanted to go to the performances next, so that's a good segue to, you know, Carmen making the transition here to movie stardom. Yeah, I don't think it's his fault, but it's like another thing where the character is not written besides looking anguish.

Yeah, brooding. Like, that is a vein of movie stardom, right, that you have a thing that you are the best at and that, like, silent, distant stare, that pained stare. Like, that is something that other actors in history have become stars with those kinds of tools. You know, like Montgomery Clift was an actor who had that kind of a quality. But it feels like very...

It does feel like Karmie, like, landed in Bruce Springsteen's life a little bit while watching the movie. West Borland contacts and called it a day. That's a tough comp. I can't unsee that now. It was given West Borland for me the whole time. Do you watch the bear? Yeah.

Did you think Jeremy Allenway was good in the film? Yeah. I thought he did a good job. Like, I think he's a good actor. I mean, there's some parts where I'm always like, oh, you didn't have to go, like, so hard in the Bruce Springsteen, like mouth movement when you're singing or whatever. But I think it's fine.

That's what you do or whatever. I thought he was, my whole thing, I thought Jeremy Strong was good, too, but I was just kind of like, you don't have a lot to work with. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. I thought Jeremy Allen White was good as this version of Bruce Springsteen.

You know, like, is there, like, I can't even think of a comp. Like, would Josh O'Connor or Miles Teller have done something different with the part? Miles Teller, you say. Well, I'm trying to think of guys who could feasibly look like Bruce Springsteen. Yeah. I just feel like, again, one of my biggest things with music biopics is that they always choose one tone. And that is the tone of the film. and we will not stray from that tone.

And it's never when you're, when you're, it doesn't feel real because people are not one note. Bruce Springsteen didn't sit for like four years and be like, oh, you know who I am? Wish I knew. I'm sure he cracked a joke now and again. Like I'm just like, and I think the most effective ones for me show a few different sides of a person.

Right. And this one was just. Mr. Depressed wrote a notebook can't commit to composite woman. Can we talk a little bit about the Odessa young character? Just because this is an amalgamation or a composite of a couple of women that he was. I think multiple women that he was dating in this period in his life. One of whom it seems had a child. Must have.

I thought that that was like a really strange choice to make that like basically the centerpiece of the film outside of the father. not because I was like I can't believe you're leaving or anything like that I thought that was fine but that was the place where I felt like I think men should leave women with children No I just felt like I could fill the fingerprints

of Bruce Springsteen on like this is what I'm comfortable sharing but then I can't get too specific about like the details of these relationships because I'm not there I don't know if you've read other Bruce Springsteen like his biography I haven't specific about it I didn't read the whole thing

but I went through those and he talks about leaving one woman to go to LA and I think all that he says is that she's like 21. No name or anything. I think Odessa Young's trying her best to give life to an underwritten character who is basically defined as like, I really like Chuck Berry and have a kid. I'm cool. I mean, same.

Manic pixie. You're a girl? You're a Chuck Barry fan? Yeah, of course. Great. Bedrock of rock and roll. Movies not successful. Jeremy Strong, you know, one of my.

guys, I'll support him to the death. Didn't think this was his best work. I thought it was very self-conscious in a way that it was a little distracting. And I know that that's kind of his bag, but it needs to have like some flair to it. It needs to be Roy Cohn. It needs to be a character with some absurdity. John Landau is, by all accounts, like a very warm good guy. And that's not the most dramatic thing.

There's no warmth in this movie. There's no charisma. Except for Mark Merritt. Yeah. And even he is not allowed to speak. But I think, you know, to Yassi's point, it's that's flat, but also is not in line keeping with like the Bruce Springsteen we know who, even if he, you know, he was in a rough patch in his life, but like that is an international, you know, icon.

Yes, a charisma machine. Exactly. Like you could give us something. Yeah. I think I just talk about the Scott Cooper. Like this is like five movies in a row that are just deathly self-serious and dull and overwritten. And this is just kind of the mode he's in.

Like there's been a couple things I've enjoyed that he's done, but it's been a very long time. And Chris is bursting at the seams right now. He wants to defend out of the furnace. He wants to defend black masks. You know, he wants to defend antlers. He wants to defend hostels. You know?

Atlas has kind of some cool scenes. You don't think so? No, I don't think it's successful, no. And it's fascinating that, like, Bruce Springsteen trusted him to tell this story. Like, did Bruce Springsteen watch antlers? What happened here? No, I think you watch out of the furnace, though. which is essentially a Bruce Springsteen song.

I heard an interview with him where he was talking about how it got made and he said, Warren Zanes. By the way, we didn't even mention Warren Zane's also a musician that was in the Delphoago's very cool. But him and Scott Cooper came to ask about it

and Bruce Springsteen was like, I'm 76, I don't care what happens. Like, that was basically what he said and I was like, okay, well then that makes more sense. I guess I'm wrong about like Springsteen's influence over like the way. No, he is promoting it.

Yeah, he was on the set almost all the time. He is promoting it for sure. I think he was, I think he was trying. to thread that needle of like I want him as an artist to be able to do what he wants to do because that's what I that's what the movie is about yeah so it would be contradictory to try to control that but for Springsteen is a business at this point he's got a really good springsteen had a really cool quote

around the time of the making of Nebraska maybe it was in retro retrospectively looking back on the making Nebraska but he was just like I felt like I was losing touch with the kind of people that I used to write about yes and that my songs were about you know and that it was like a moment where obviously he's about to become unable to go to diners and unable to... Go to the library and look at a lot of microfiche. And not even just about... That's just something I love to do. And I miss that in my life deeply.

But not even just about him feeling like, oh, I'm too famous now. It was literally like, I have left the atmosphere that I lived in. You know? And that wasn't even really... There are suggestions of it. And some of the diners, you can see him like looking at guys. like eating their breakfast or whatever and you can kind of feel him. His alienation.

His alienation. I'm not, like, I'm not going to be that guy probably. You can't eat breakfast anymore? I can't. Yeah. So the movie is tracking to make between $10 and $12 million. There's also, is that a lot? I wanted to know if you clock this in a diner.

Yeah. There's one point where Jeremy Strong and Jeremy Allen White are in the diner, and they seem to be either had separately or splitting, a tuna melt. and eggs over easy and onion rings. And I just want to say I don't approve of that diet order. That's a great order. What do you mean? And what's wrong that?

Tunamel in the onion rings and one of somebody else's. And eggs over easy? You're in a diner. You got to get eggs. You got to get eggs. You're splitting the eggs. Oh, no. You don't have to get eggs.

You can if you want. You and Andy need to go to Jupiter and have your diner orders. No, we need to go to the east coast of the United States of America where diner culture thrives. You're ordering a tuna melt and eggs. I want to. But in a splitting scenario, sure. And you do eat tuna melt. Even though, yeah, same, even though you're, like, against all of the ingredients individually, together, their powers come back.

But you're an anti-mananeats guy. Yeah. And I eat bread. Right, but everything that goes into the tuna sauce, whatever. And cheese, real up and down relationship with. I love it. It doesn't love me. But I'm doing my best to survive it.

I like that order, and I support those two. Okay. Andy into getting mozzarella sticks and black coffee. I'm just never going to get it. That also sounds great. I think that's a great order. That sounds awesome. But I'm with you on that.

You guys are a real diner fascists over here. The whole point of a diner is like the world is your oyster. Get whatever you want. Precisely. Makes it up. It just doesn't go together, you know? Box office for this movie, you kind of shouldn't make this movie unless it's going to make money. And it seems like they've made a movie that isn't going to make a lot of money,

which then makes this like a very weird curio. This is one of the few subgenres of movies that we've talked about in the last 10 years that can kind of break through to adult audience. and reach them because they want to go and hear Queen's songs really loud or Ray Charles songs or Aretha Franklin songs or Bob Dylan songs as we saw last year and it seems like this is not going to do very well. It seems like Chainsaw Man is going to take a chainsaw to this movie at the box office as we can. Anybody seen Chainsaw Man?

Not yet. You know. I tell you what, I'm seeing it in theaters. I'm telling you right now. I'm seeing Chainsaw Man has tickets after this so I have a hard out. I'll do a mastermind, chainsaw man, double-heder. Those are two different energies, but I'd be. They could go great together, just like eggs and a tuna mill.

You never know. It raises the question of, like, why? Like, why was this movie made? Why is it going to do well? Is it because it has bad reviews? I don't think the word of mouth will be great on this movie. The word of mouth is not going to be good. The review scores have come way down since the festival premiere.

But I think it's also like it's about Nebraska. It's not about born in the USA. Right. You know, it's not this exultation of artistic achievement, which is the opposite, obviously, of a complete unknown, which is about this transformative moment full of songs that people who are Bob Dylan fans know and can sing along to. I think of always of that weird scene in that movie when it seems like there's going to be nuclear disaster and L. Fanning like races downstairs around the corner to see him playing Masters of War in a coffee shop at like 10 p.m. at night

and I'm like, this is the most bullshity scene I've ever seen in a movie in my life. But it was awesome. It was fucking awesome because I was like, you know, Masters of War, that's a jam. It's a really good song, and this movie has none of that. But even for Nebraska head, CR, tell me if I'm wrong, I'm a Nebraska head. There wasn't enough Nebraska songs. I was like, I didn't even, they cut out when they're pressing the record and they're like, we're going to play, I'm on fire. I'm just like, listen, I love I'm on fire.

That's one of the greatest songs ever written, but that's not on that record. You're making, you're literally pressing Nebraska. They wanted to remind you that watching this film was like taking a knife, baby, edgy and doll, six inch valley through the middle of my skull. Yeah, okay. I mean, the why of... You're like pre-spacing? Of course I do.

I'm an American, you know? The why of like, why... It's all tied up in the same thing. Why did you make this movie like this? Like, the fact that this movie is as befuddling to us in a sitting down to watching at this audience set, and that then also pertains to its box office. It's just, I don't...

Why? Well, one reason to make this movie is Academy Awards, right? Mm-hmm. So when I came out of that screening, I tell you ride, everybody was like, well, that is a best actor nomination locked and loaded right there for you. And now with some distance, like, you have a very crowded best actor race this year. We have two obvious ones. We have Bob Dylan himself, Timothy Chalamey and Marty Supreme, and we have Leonardo DiCaprio in one battle after another. Yeah. We've also got Michael B. Jordan and Senters.

Michael Be Jordan and Centers. I agree. We've got Dwayne Johnson potentially in The Smashing Machine, though that movie has not done as well. you know Austin Abrams and weapons I don't think he'll be campaigning Okay There are a few other

Significant contenders Jesse Plemons Jesse Plemons from Bagonia is on that list Look at that Venice jumping out That's right All done I hope Wagner Mora For the Secret Agent is nominated

He's amazing in that movie Hopefully we'll talk about that soon on the show I don't know if I see it happening I don't either At this point I think if this movie kind of comes and goes and doesn't have any traction at the box office. It would be really hard for them to make the argument.

It does remind me a little bit of the way that so many best actress nominations tend to happen, where that is the only thing that is recognized in a movie, because this is not probably going to get nominations in other categories more than likely. It's kind of impressive because obviously he went through a lot of training, I would imagine, to get as good as he did at guitar and be as good as he did it sounding just like Bruce Brinson. And if I were him, I'd be like, Scott Cooper, let me play a couple more. songs, man. Yeah, where is the companion album of Jeremy Allen White singing all the Bruce Springsteen

songs like a complete unknown? That actually worked. I listened to that sometimes. There actually is. Tonight, they're releasing the Expandanded Nebraska with the multiple versions of... The electric versions, right? Yeah, the electric versions that he was not satisfied with. So how do you guys feel about that?

That's deep Bruce lore. I'm so pumped. Okay. You're pumped. For the Expanded Nebraska? Yeah. Yes. Sierra has an alarm set.

This is like a legendary... Or 9 p.m. When will they give it to us? Never appeared on bootlegs, yes. That's cool. You don't care? It's fine. I'll listen to it. Okay. I'm not as excited as you are. Sorry. I'm sorry.

You're not asking me if I care. I know you don't care. I also think that you're not a real bonus features kind of person. No, I think that you should work really hard, finish your product fully and release it. And don't make me sit through the extras or the redoes, you know? Okay. Finish it before you ask me for my attention. Somebody should let me.

Absolutely, Scott, no, that that's where Amanda stands on his work. I know, and I, you know, the four hours. Have you and Tracy watched Kingdom of Heaven directors cut together yet? Not together, no. Yeah, you could set up a little Zoom. Yeah, you could do that. Sell tickets to that. I would cover.

You should find if Hitmaker watched it yet because he was like, damn, you really did. Oh, he did? He told me he did. Does he like that shit sucked? Yeah, he said CR is a cuck. And it's like, well, it's your opinion, man. Let's talk briefly about music biopics. Yassi opened by proclaiming that they could be good.

They aren't good very often. Well, people should take that as a challenge. But I still sometimes enjoy them. I know you do, because you love to hear music loud and make it fun, right? Yeah, and I do, it is always the moment that is in some ways the cringiest moment until you have seen delivery from nowhere and you understand that it's actually someone writing in a notebook. Double album, question mark. Why? Question mark.

But when they're sitting there in the studio. or somewhere and they're like noodling on a guitar and you're like oh my god they're you know they're right in respect that's like that's highway 61 i just you know oh my god he just like someone just sat down at the organ you know uh and every single time that works and even in this movie it's the real highlight we're just like oh my god he's playing board in the u.s. when they have the max Weinberg start the phone beat i was like yeah yo uh so i don't really hold the same opinion on that that's not usually how it works but i didn't feel that way What, what isn't how it works?

That they just start playing it in the studio that way? So you don't think that Bob Dylan wrote Blowing in the Wins Yeah, he did at the vanity table on the hotel room. After blowing out, Joan Bias is back? Is that what you're going to say? I'm going to be a little more delicate. Okay.

And I guess, according to that scene, he had already written it, and she found the lyrics on the, on the coffee table. Yeah. It was originally called Blown Out Her Back and he was like, I got a metaphor of this movie a little bit. Men are very creative, post-coital,

able to do a lot of things, write a lot of beautiful music or do anything. But yeah, you know, and then they play and you're like, it's this song. I love this song. I don't know. One thing I'll say is we're fucked because they're just going to keep making movies

about artists that are more and more important to us because we're getting old. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's do the good first and then we can talk about the bad. So the good. If you had to choose one, Yassi, if the four of us were going to build the Mount Rushmore,

we're going to choose the most essential music biopic, or the best expression of a music biopic ever. Well, you already know what I'm going to say. We'll just say. 24-hour party people, which I know it's cheating a little because it's like kind of not exactly a music biopic because it's a about a label, a head and a scene. But I think it counts. Okay. Obviously, you can't pick a doc, right? No, obviously.

And are we, so biopic, it's about real people as opposed to fake people. She's thinking the thing I'm thinking. It has to be about real people, yes. You're thinking spinal top. Well, I don't, this isn't my pick, but since you just said some rude things about Joan Baez and a complete unknown. I do have to say that Monica Barbaro was amazing. I did not think it was actually her singing as Joan Baez, and then she was, she was good. I mean, Sissy Space Act, right?

Yeah. That was going to be my pick, actually. We should have talked about that. Coal miner's daughter is definitely the... Right. It's kind of the template setter and maybe ruined them a little bit. But I rewatched most of it last night, and it's still weird and unexpected, directed by Michael Apted.

And crucially, like, there is conflict in her life story, and it just shows it in real time. Not a lot of bells and whistles. The last 30 minutes is just now, She's famous and performing, and that's complicated too. But she's amazing in it. Yeah. I mean, part of that is, I think, because Michael Afted is a documentarian.

So, like, he's well suited to trying to portray something real, right? And, like, that's kind of the trick of these movies. It's, like, Deliver Me for Noor just feels really artificial. It doesn't really... It would have been an incredible documentary, actually, like, instead of a movie. Well, sure. There are documentaries, I think, about the three previous Bruce Springsteen movies. that's the thing. It's like it almost felt like his

team was like, we got to do a different version if we're going to do another album. Although I probably know, in retrospect, would just do like a long-form Nebraska doc. I think it would be great. I would probably say, honestly, I would say a complete unknown. I think that's the one

I had the most fun watching. I love that music. I thought he did a great job. I thought I depicted the fantasy version of that era in a pretty enlivening way. I did want to ask you, gut check, vibe check time after seeing Deliver Me From Nowhere. How are we feeling about four Beatles movies incoming?

God, oh boy. Because that could go. I mean, so. Real good. So they cast Sershia Ronan as Lyndon McArney. They did. We love her. And then.

The word is James Norton is going to play Brian Epstein. Right. Yeah. And then have. It's good casting. And then. Paul Meskel is Paul. Right.

Harris Dickinson is John. Joseph Quinn is George. Joseph Quinn is George and Barry Keogan is Ringo. Yes. You know, beautiful casting. Pretty good casting.

Beautiful casting. Right. We love all our boyfriends. Four separate films about four separate phases of Beatles' life, all four directed by Sam Edithes. Traditionally undocumented group.

Right. We know nothing about them really, actually. And by a director whose last films have really spoken to me on an emotional and aesthetic level. Have your Empire of Light 4K with the commentary been released yet. No, but I do. I did once again

find that screener DVD that you let me, like in the player. Hard to believe I forgot about that. Do you want it back? No, thanks. Chill, what's yours? My pick would probably be, I had been thinking

Cold Miner's daughter because I think it's the one that sort of sets it and it's a little hard to surpass it because Sissy's so good. Probably Love and Mercy, the Brian Wilson's film. Which is a really good movie and I think does a good job of kind of giving you both. It gives you the making of pet sounds

in a way that feels very satisfying to what you're describing where they're in the room figuring out good vibrations, but then also it shows you Wilson at a different stage of his life, two different performances, two actors I really like

in Cusack and Paul Dino. It's just like it's a movie you could never predict where it's going. Whereas I feel like a lot of these movies you know exactly what the arc is going to be and so it's really hard to get to the bar of thrilling you with the way that it's done.

But, you know, I think if Joe and Jill Popcorn were making this list, like, it would be very different. It would be, you know, it would be like straight at a Compton. It would be Ray. It would be, walk the line. How do you feel about those kinds? I really don't like them. You don't like it when they're like, it's this person, but it's not this person.

Like Velvet Goldman? Oh, those. Yeah, that's right. I mean, it probably depends on the movie, honestly. I don't have anything against them. I think Velvet Goldline was really really good. good. It is.

It's so hard to imagine because, you know, the intention of the movie when Hayne started it was just to make

Bowie and Iggy and just do right, you know, um, you know, T-Rex, like just to represent

all of those people. There's something interesting in him having to change it and it makes for a fun like, oh, is kind of guessing game

quality to it. It gives him a lot more creative freedom. I mean, I think that, it's less hitting you over the head, which is I think

one of the worst feelings. Yeah. When I watch these movies is the thing I feel like, oh, you think I'm so stupid. You think I'm an idiot.

Yeah. I think we're at a disadvantage when watching them because we know a lot about these worlds. You know, we spend a lot of time, you know, you haven't spent as much time in the music criticism gold mines. I live among you and around you at all times. I don't know that much about Nebraska.

I learned it all after the fact. That's why when I was watching it, I was like, who is this for someone who knows everything about it or nothing about it? Because you got to pick one. I feel like I was like. Went down the middle. I was like in the 70th percentile of knowing about Nebraska.

I think it misses for everything. And you still didn't know who that guy was. I didn't. Yeah. I didn't know who his driver was. Okay. So what's like your next Nebraska? What's the one music biopic that you're like,

this shall not pass? I don't want to ever see a movie about the Clash. Oh, interesting. I don't want to see, like, because that also like West Way to the World and a lot of the docs about the Clash are incredible. I think the Clash have these like really amazing distinctive arrows with a lot of drama to them. They would probably work as movies, but I don't have a ton of confidence that it wouldn't be like, this is about when they played Shea Stadium. Should I stay or should I go?

Let me ask you a related question. When I get the funding to make my Slits biopic, am I allowed to have that as tertiary character? Yes. That's the way to do it. Is that not? Thank you. Yes. You guys, bang my line. I'm ready to make this film. Yeah. Who do you think was listening or watching Jerry Bruck Highbride. I'm part of... I was like, who is this dazzling fun in a dinosaur junior show?

I'm using this beautiful podcast as a launching pad for my illustrious career. I know you don't support female directors famous. How dare you? Just watched a film that I worked on that was made by a female film like her

20 hours ago. You support all female directors except me. There's a female director on this episode today. And I don't know what your problem is, but it's going to be really good.

What about you? My Slits book? You got the Replacements movie maybe coming? Yeah. I mean, that inspired this exercise, which I am genuinely concerned about. I think, you know, it is based on Trouble Boys, the great, great, great Bob Mayer book. Fantastic. That's an amazing book.

The Replacement is one of my favorite bands, one of our favorite bands. One of your favorite bands. But Finn Wolfheart is adapting that film with his dad. Right. And that's. Which one is that? The Stranger Things. Oh, no.

He is a musician. I'm trying to be hopeful and positive Finn Wolfhard is not giving the mats at all at all I know I know That's the other problem That's like that kind of

That's chill down my spine When I saw that headline It's my favorite band I'm feeling I think they should cast me in it Number one Okay And then hire me as a consultant

I know probably more about the replacements than almost anyone on Earth Well Finn Wolf Hard will put you to the test So that is happening That's already agreed Just to me, it's Beastie Boys. I feel like Beastie Boys, they should not do that. There will be a lot of temptation to do that.

Those are three great star parts, three really charismatic guys. You know, our, like, American version of the Beatles Nightmare to me is like... Three Beastie Boys. Yeah, that would be so awful. You know, three-twenty-somethings. And then Money Mark is the fourth one. Yeah, that's just... What if Spike Jones was directing it?

Oh. Well, now, if you told me that there was like a form-breaking version of the movie or more of a 24-hour party people, I would certainly entertain that. If it was like Def Jam in 1987, that would be exciting. Right. But anything that's like, here are the trials and travails of these three guys. Yeah. I mean, I worship them.

It's not about them. It's about what it would do to my feelings about them. So that would be my choice. Do you have one? Yeah, but it's not out of personal protectiveness. It's out of like I, like I don't think that I or we collectively as a society can live through a Taylor Swift biopic. Yeah. Like we straight up, we just like, we cannot.

would she cast herself as Taylor Swift? I was going to say, I feel like we are living through it. I like the new album because I don't really listen to the words. And I've been there through a lot with her. We just can, like, can you imagine? We cannot do it. In this case, would it be her as herself? I mean, that could be tough.

Or imagine her casting someone, you know, as her and then directing it. What I was Sabrina Carpenter is? Taylor Swift. I mean, there we go. Okay. None of them would be good. What's yours? That's a really good pick, though.

Thank you. Ernest is going back to camp. I believe that you can make a beautiful and good and interesting version of any music biopic. I don't know that they will. There's not a single artist. You're like, don't make Kurt Cobain alone. I think they probably will make that film. And they already did make kind of Gus Van Sant made that pretty.

difficult film last days that's right i saw it that was a kid from boardwalk empire yeah michael pitt michael pitt right let's can we just have a sidebar quickly this came up in the office yesterday oh nirvana in 2025 yeah okay yeah now i see a lot of teenagers wearing uh in utero t-shirts yeah i was gonna say i see a lot of five-year-olds wearing yeah you know so that's happened right like that and that happened every generation that happens to, right? Like, I got a little kid. I'm not going to force Nirvana on her.

But if she liked Nirvana, I'd be pretty excited. She has a PJ Harvey shirt. She does. She definitely has not her dry yet, but she will one day. She'll know all about it. What do you think Nirvana means to America right now? Why do you sound like Charlie Rose? Oh, great.

Are you running for office? It's really hard. This is funny that you asked me this because, like, a couple of months ago, I went on a British podcast with Miranda Sawyer, the great about the 90s and I talked about Nirvana and I like the clip they chose is about me saying I guess mistakenly like okay boomer six seven vibes sorry to bring up six seven dad oh my god it's a whole other podcast but I but I was like oh I feel like nirvana is sort of frozen in the amber of coolness I feel like because that was one of the last prominent subcultures it's still being referred

like grunge is still a reference to things that are cool today but I was, the comments came from me they were like, okay, ma, you know? Like, of course, like, what's up, B, Arthur? Well, yeah, this is what people think about the B, I mean, I was like, oh my lord,

am I old and out of touch? People were saying that it wasn't, that it's not cool? Yeah, they were kind of saying like you would think that because that was your cool music and maybe that's totally true because I have no way of living outside of myself, you know? So maybe they're not, I don't know. They are, because they aren't still around, you know. Like it's just, it's just handed down.

They are not still. They didn't evolve into like Pearl Jam, jam band. Or they're not like at the Rose Bowl with all of so old people. Is Oasis uncool? To young people? By the way, they should not, we have the documentary. They should not do the Oasis one either. Even though it seems like those guys would take some checks.

rich text, though, you know, that relationship. Yeah, that would be a comedy, a buddy comedy. You like Nirvana? I do. I mean, I think I... I also like plenty of contemporary bands who are heavily influenced by Navarana. So I think whether or not Yassi is washed or not is immaterial, like, there are a lot of bands that do like... And you're not washed.

I have always wanted to do a pot at the ringer called Am I Washed, where just like every... Each episode is a different staffer and then they're being like drilled by a, you know, 22-year-old staffer with like all the references in the world. Should we get that show going? What do you think? I think so, but I think the 22-year-olds would just be like, no, and like looking at their phone. Wow. Shots fired. Do you think the Nirvana biopic, though, would be, like, more of an event culturally than the Springsteen one, for example?

I think that would be a real... It would be a very hot button. It would be like, what are you going to do about the evidence there? Yeah. I just think if you were like, we're making this an epic tragedy, you could. You know about a person just unable to control the spiral of his life. How interesting would it be if they made it only about a different part of his life? This is what I'm asking, like, please just like try to think a little outside of rocks.

Yeah, if you were to make a $25 million version of that and make it sort of making a bleach, that's interesting. And it was called, what about a different person and it was called Back to Black starring Marissa Bella as Amy Winehouse? Hard refused to see that. It was genuinely offensive. Yeah. And the way they ended it, which was like with upbeat tears dry on her own and then, um, you know, some block tax? Was it like an end title about, yeah,

and then she died, essentially? That's literally how they did it. It was horrifying. It was very unsuccessful. It's all those like late capitalism where it's like it's just a cash grab. And so they're not doing the art properly because they have to make the most money possible.

And that's just then it suffers. Yeah, but it's not going to be a classic. It's not going to go down and down. They did not make choices based on money. They didn't. I agree, which is interesting. They made choices based on throwing a dart at a wall. No, it was very intentional.

It just was the wrong intention or the misbegotten intention. Anyway, it's not a very pleasant place to end this conversation, but this wasn't the most pleasant viewing experience as a movie. I still like Bruce Springsteen, though. We love Bruce Springsteen in this house. He's the best. And I still believe that music biopics can be good. The best?

He's like the best, you know? He's like the boss. Yeah. He is the boss. Maybe he's not the best. I recently told this on another podcast that has not come out yet, but I'm just going to share it right here. So my dad does not like Bruce Springsteen.

Surprising. I'm from New York, not New Jersey. And my dad, one of the primary reasons that he doesn't like him is because he's the boss. And my dad would literally say when I was a kid, he's not the boss. I'm the boss, which is one of the most dad things that can possibly be uttered. And, you know, his kids would like laugh in his face when he would say this. but I definitely grew up not hating Bruce Springsteen, but just not being in like the church.

You know, I think for some people when you grow up, you're in the, you have the halo of like, this is one of the signature emotional songwriters of the era. And I didn't have that. So I didn't even have that portal to this. I tried to end this on a, on like a positive note, but you brought it back down to have Bruce says he's not your loss.

When are the Beatles movies coming out, 2027? What's that? Are the Beatles movies in 27 or 28? You were like, I have to keep podcasting to me this. Can I give a quick shout out to my cousin Lely's best friend, Coleman, who loves this podcast and recently asked if she was related to me because you say my first and last name on here all the time. I just want to say to him hi.

Coleman? That's right. Can you guys say hi to Coleman? Hi, Coleman. Great stuff, man. That's a high note, babe. That's how we end on a high note. Fan service.

Thank you, Yassie. Thank you, C.R. Thank you, boss. You did it, sir. Thank you, Dad. It's just us now. Hello. We can say what we really think about delivering me from nowhere,

which is the best movie of the year. God. Let's talk briefly about if I had legs, I'd kick you, which is the new A-24 movie that is expanding over the next couple of weeks. Mary Bronson's on the show. She wrote and directed this movie. She hasn't made a movie in 17 years. She made a movie called Yeast in the kind of high times of the,

Mumblecore, New York era, and she's been working on this movie for some time based on very specific personal experience of raising her daughter who was struggling with a physical ailment, and she had to travel across the country and take care of her by herself because her partner was not available to her. And it's an extremely intimate, harrowingly intimate. Quite literally, much of it is filmed in like tight close-up around Roseburn, who plays the mother who's the star of the film's face. It's just following her. So, you know, this is a podcast that supports mothers. Sure. Yeah. We think you. We believe in motherhood. Yeah, thanks so much. We thank you every day for it. I responded very intensely to this movie, but I was very curious what

you thought about it. Yeah. No, I, so as I wrote in the dock, I felt like I was going to throw up throughout this movie, which is said as a compliment, like complimentary. Yeah. No, I thought this was like astonishingly good and an incredible act of like of writing and filmmaking in a very like personally observed way that does speak to a larger experience in the world aka being a mother like I did feel like I was going to throw up though it wasn't the most fun I've had at the movies all year but an amazing performance amazing writing um I did think that the close up and the claustrophobic decision making in the in the in the in the in the in the cinematography was smart and added to and there's also one a decision they make and um how they portray the kid that

i thought was absolutely wonderful um so yeah amazing movie we are going to have like a mom and dad summit at the end of the year yeah i i said to you though i think the two themes of movies of some of the best movies of the year, some of which we haven't even had a chance to talk about yet, is that fathers are trying very hard to care for their daughters, and they're struggling deeply with that. Sure. But also, they've realized that it's a beautiful thing. Fatherhood is beautiful and emotionally rewarding. It can be. It can also reveal the male flaw. Sure. Kind of primal male flaw. But it's worth it. But it's worth it. I agree. You guys are going through it. I saw one battle after another for the fifth time last night with some colleagues.

And I was, it was probably my most emotional screening yet. It's a beautiful movie. I really, really like, yeah. You know, sentimental value is about that. Yeah. There's a handful of Hamnet is, you know, related to parenthood, you know. Sort of about that. It's about both, yeah. And, and motherhood as well.

The other theme this year is sort of like, you motherfuckers don't realize that being a mom is insane. That's kind of what, and you know, Die My Love is coming out in a couple of weeks. We'll talk about that film soon. The new Jennifer Lawrence Lynn Ramsey movie. Hamlet also about that. It's obviously like a left. theme in one battle after another, but I think it's like very beautifully done there.

The powerful alienation of giving birth and then how to be a person after that, which this, I think if I had legs I'd like I'd kick you, was a really interesting exploration of that because it's not about a mom with a newborn. Yeah, it's not about postpartum. It's just about like being a mother in the world. And all the different types of people or systems that, where the ways our world is organized that just, like, don't support it at all. Or don't, like, it's not even that they don't acknowledge it,

but it's just so much is assumed and taken for granted. There's one little detail in the movie that I really like, which, you know, I'm obviously not a mom, but I do relate to, which is very early in the film. Roseburn's character is trying to get her family home, get her daughter home and inside, and she's got a pizza, and they're going into the house, and her daughter, off camera is sort of, like, screaming

because something is going wrong, and the anxiety and, like, intense. is already building, and the pizza has already fallen over and is kind of a mess, and she just kind of shoves a giant piece of cheese into her mouth. Really funny. And just like the act of eating while parenting is a really difficult survival strategy, and I'd never seen it expressed quite so specifically and perfectly as her shoving that pizza cheese into her mouth.

I mean, I've got a dissertation on the, I guess it's the family support group or the mom support group when we get there, you know, which is like some of some of the best writing I've seen this year. Yeah, it's really good. And an amazing Roseburn performance. And I hope that she continues in the Oscars conversation. I hope so too, obviously a great actress who's had like a really varied career and has been in big Hollywood box office films, comedies, a great dramatic actress has been a big TV star now. And also, like I did think about her in neighbors and, you know, in this. And it's funny. Like her motherhood in that movie. Yeah, for sure. It's a different, it's, you know, an evolution of it.

She's very, Fearless is always a dumb thing to say, but she's always very willing to kind of like de-glamorize herself in aid of telling the story well. What did you think of Conan O'Brien? Really funny. Yeah, it was pretty effective, right?

And like a good use of, and so he plays a therapist. So we were just talking about therapy culture in, and I'm usually against that in the text of a movie, but it is, I think, used very smartly. Yes. and is examined, which ironically is not often the case in movies about analysis. Yes, a movie, I mean, and also Rose Byrne's character is also a therapist, and so it takes place inside of the business of that world in a way that I think is pretty revealing.

This movie is a very cool accomplishment, and you can also feel, you know, Mary is married to Ronald Bronstein, who is an editor and filmmaker himself, who works with the Safdies. This movie is produced by Alara. Right. It is definitely kind of tonally in the realm of uncut gems and Marty Supreme and the way that there is like a forced intimacy with difficult moments in life that is maybe its own new subgenre of movie that I like. I don't know if I could do three to six of these a year. No, like I said, it was really, really intense. And I was really moved and also like ran out of there when it was over. and went home and hugged my kids.

Okay, don't run anywhere. Stick around now for my conversation with Mary Bronstine. Mary Bronston is here first time on the show. Hi, Mary, how are you? I'm great.

How are you doing? I'm really good. I have a lot of questions for you about your film. You bet. Which I found to be fascinating and invasive in good ways. Do you remember the exact day

that you began writing it? I do. I do. I started writing this film on the bathroom floor of a really shitty hotel room because it was the only place I could escape to while sharing a hotel room with my daughter. she was little lights out at eight we were roommates in this tiny room with two twin beds and the only place I could go to be that I could like be I thought like do my own thing was this bathroom a turn on the light awful fluorescent lighting I'd be in there every night drinking like a cheap wine scarfing junk food a lot of jack in the box involved in this in San Diego. And one night I was sitting there and I just realized I had this like

dread, this feeling of dread. And we were there in San Diego because my daughter was getting treatment for illness that she had, she was seven years old. And she's 15 now and she's great. She's fine. But I had this sense of existential dread that I couldn't put my finger on. And at first I thought it was because of the situation I was in. Like, will she get better? What will happen? Blah, blah, blah. Then I realized it wasn't that at all.

It was the feeling that I felt like I was disappearing into, because everything, every part of my being was being put into taking care of her and making sure that she was going to get better so that we could get back to New York and get back to normal. But then I realized, oh, wait. she is going to get better and we are going to go back to New York to our home and it is going to go back to quote unquote normal but like what what then what then because I've been in this state now for so long we were there for eight months and she was ill before that before we've been got there I've been in this caretaking role for so long it's been my whole life what then what's going to happen and I literally in a very literal sense felt myself disappearing my being my my self and uh i started writing the script in that bathroom uh in that state and in that physical place and in that emotional place right there um and i just started writing it and i first started writing it to kind of like give myself um a way to express all of these things I was feeling, but also a way to, like, set, have a hope for the future. Well, if I'm writing

this thing, it's not, I am not writing it to put it in a drawer later. I'm not going to Emily Dickinson this. This is going to, I want to make this, I want to make this movie. And it, it was, it saved me in a little bit of way. It gave me an answer for what could be the future. Were you explicit about the fact that you wanted to make it as a film or just that like even the idea of being creative at that time gave you hope for the future of yourself? Yeah, that's a really good question, that I wanted to make it into a film because part of like I had this existential crisis like I said and part of it was coming back around. I had made my first film, you know, in 2008 and then I made some shorts and then I disappeared from that world.

And part of the existential examination crisis that I was going through, I came around to the fact that, hey, wait a minute, I've been running away from this thing. Like in the movie, the character is running away from herself. I've been running away from myself. I'm a filmmaker. I'm a screenwriter. That's what I am.

I'm going to, that's what I am. And that's what I want to do. and I was so outside of the of any sort of way to imagine that the movie would get made and so outside of any system and certainly like the standard industry at that point at any point with my work that it was it was really felt like a like a fantasy that it would get made, but I knew that I had to. I had to. I had to. Because I had something to say, and it was something urgent. And so many movies get made, whereas the person has nothing to say. And there's no, that person is not in that movie. Their fingerprints are not in that movie.

And when they talk about the movie, they can't talk about it because they had no reason to make the movie other than to make a movie. I had a reason to make a movie. I had a reason to make a movie. I had something to say. And so it was that with that energy and that sort of tenacity that I barreled forward. It's not, it doesn't screen blockbuster. So how do you like get people to agree to make the movie? How do you raise money? How do you like actually go from where you were when your daughter was seven to now where she's 15? Like what happens in that eight years? Yeah. I mean, really it was the script. I honed the script over a two-year period and then started sharing it. And, you know, I had the experience where everybody that read the script said,

oh, my God, this is the best script I've ever read. But we can't make this movie, which doesn't make any sense, right? But the reason why I was getting those responses was because it's a not, like you said, it's not a blockbuster, although I did bust a block in Australia. There was at a movie theater, there were people lined up around the block. And I was like, that's a blockbuster. That counts. I take it back.

I'm sorry. But I busted a block once. How long was the block? Do you have like yardage or? They were around. I feel like if it goes around a quarter, that counts. I agree. So we'll see if it happens again.

I don't know. You've made a blockbuster. No, it's not, it's a movie where the central struggle of the movie is not a commercial one. It's a creative one. And those are movies that when they can slip through the system and get made, I think for viewers are the most exciting. Because it doesn't happen all the time. And for me, really, it was my script. that got this done.

Everybody responded to the script so strongly. But some people, you know, they didn't want to take the risk. Other people wanted me to change ideas in the script, which I was not willing to do, so I would walk away. Other people had like really bizarre ideas about how I should change the script to make it more commercial. Can you give me an example of one? that it should be a uh that it should focus on a story of a of a missing woman and really

lean into uh you know that there's the police looking for her and and it's a crime right gone girl your story of lost identity yeah yeah it's like well no no no that's not right so i walk away uh you have to have confidence you have to have a lot of confidence in your ideas to say no to those people and those situations. When I finally got around to A-24, I was so confident in my script and so full of a sort of rage that I had been pushing this boulder up a hill for so long,

you know, that I approached it with a very sort of radical, like, this is the script, this is the movie, no notes on the script, do you want to make it or not? And they said, and they said, yeah, we want to make it. And I had to go through all that time. I had to go through that rejection to get to that point. And then once I got there, I had partners who trusted me, trusted my ideas and really let me do my thing. That doesn't mean that it was a cakewalk making the film and making sure that my ideas were not, that I wasn't making creative concessions, but I was in the right place to be

able to have those fights and win them. So I'm really curious about whether or not the visual language of the movie was in the screenplay. Because you've made, like, such a series of very specific choices. So, like, and how would you communicate that in the writing? Because I feel like that also informs, like, whether or not somebody really gets what you're trying to accomplish. Yeah, yeah, totally. I'm a very, so I wrote the script knowing that if it was going to be made, I was going to direct it.

So I wrote it really as a director's script. So I'm also a very visual writer. So I think a screenplay, there's different ways to look. a screenplay. Some people look at a screenplay as a blueprint for something that will be created in the form of a film or a TV show. I think the screenplay is a piece of work on its own, is a piece of literature on its own. But the job of it is that while you're reading the screenplay, the reader should be seeing the movie in their mind. That's a good. good screenplay. That's a screenplay that you read in one sitting. And that's how I wrote it where

the visual choices that you see in the film, those are in the script. Because those are central conceptual ideas that inform everything about the movie. I can't imagine writing a script for this movie that didn't have any of that and then coming up with those ideas later. It's how the story is told. It is the story, all of those elements. And so there's a lot of parts that that were difficult, that were difficult to put on paper because they're quite abstract. Yeah. And those were the difficult parts of writing. But, you know, but yeah, That's how it was. So the conceptual elements that you're talking about, like not seeing the daughter, the abstractions of what I call the void, the hamster stuff, all of that, the breathwork stuff, the imagery that gets abstracted there, even the sounds, even the sounds are in the screenplay. This is an obvious one, but even the idea of just how close the camera would be to an actor.

That's in there. That's in there. Yes. So while I'm writing the script, I'm also visually giving the reader what the movie is going to be. And for me, as someone that was writing it, wanting to be the person to direct it, I'm also giving myself that gift and all of who's going to be the people that's going to help me execute my vision, that gift. Because then I have a document that they can read that they can understand what I mean instead of me trying to translate it just from my brain. It can start

from there and then the conversation can start from there. It also feels like it's maybe potentially a warning to a certain kind of actor who isn't ready to take a leap with something like this. Sure. So I feel like Rose signing on to do it. You know, that's a, this is a very,

I don't know if risky is the right word, but you know, it's a very intense part. I imagine it's very intense making it. It is. It's, you know, when I was, when I was writing the script, I kept thinking of it as like a gift that I was going to give an actress because the character is a middle-aged woman who is

and it's radically in only her point of view or in her reality. I'm writing it, I'm directing it. That doesn't exist. That doesn't exist. There are not parts for middle-aged women that are like this where you if you're a performer or something that you can really sink your sink your teeth into and really like go there emotionally which is what every actor wants to do that's why they are actors um and um i knew that i was also uh writing a really big check that uh somebody the actress would have to cash and it can bounce or else the whole thing doesn't work, right? And so Rose was always on the top of my list for like for a few reasons. One, she's, I mean, she's, she's an incredible talent.

I think she's, I'm biased now, but, but at the time, even when before I knew her, I thought she's one of the best that we have working today. She's somebody that has this like rare combination where she has an innate understanding of comedy and comedic timing that you can't teach and also has the ability is an exceptional proper technical actor. This woman, you know, has played Medea on stage and she also can be in bridesmaids and she also can be in platonic but she can also do something like the show physical, which when I saw the first episode of that show, I felt like that was the audition tape for this movie.

I saw it. And I was like, she can do this. She can do this. And she's also beloved. If you mention, whenever I would mention, you know, oh, who's in your movie, Roseburn? I love Roseburn universally. That's the thing.

So then I can also, I'm hard to sing that as a tool. as well. Because when her face comes on the screen, it's a face that the viewer, you know, is used to, they have goodwill towards her. They're used to seeing her in things that make them feel good, that bring them joy, that will make them laugh. And so having, I use that as a tool, too, because I'm taking the audience into some really, really dark places. And if I have somebody at the helm of it, who even if it's just subconscious,

you feel good about, I'm going to be able to go even further. And Rose is, you know, the script is very difficult to perform. Sometimes you're getting a laugh on the heels of a very serious scene and the opposite. And sometimes it's happening inside of a scene. You're getting a laugh inside of a very tense scene.

And she can do that. There's a very small list of people who can do that. And for me, she's at the top of it. And she, this performance is beyond my wildest dreams. She availed herself to me creatively so fully. She turned herself inside out and upside down for this thing. It's a physical performance as well. And it was very intense.

I wanted to ask you about what it's like to put your experience on screen in front of so many people. I know it's not a documentary and I know certain aspects of the story are changed. But even just hearing you describe the genesis of the idea, like it seems like there are legitimate one to one points of comparison. Yeah, like I always, the way that I think about it is it's certainly not an, I would never say it's an autobiographical film, um, in the traditional sense, but it's, it's emotionally true. Everything in it is emotionally true, which is what I was trying to get at. So it's started, um, the impetus for it is a true thing. And then I'm trying to take, uh, what I was trying to do is take that those, that those feelings, um, that I was having, um, that the, the, that, the, that, the, that, the, that, the, that, the, that, the, that, the, the, that. that existential terror that I was experiencing and abstracting it out into a story that is pretend. You know, and it's, so all of it is based in truth. But most of it is a fantasy as pretend.

It's a movie. There's like a tract related to that that I want to ask you about. So because, any character that's a mother in a movie, if they do something that is not an expectation of motherhood, if they break a rule, that immediately gets identified as an unlikable character, right? Sure.

Yes. And you're trying to create like a nuanced portrayal of a sensation that you have, but then do you know when you're writing and making the film that that's immediately going to be like something you're going to have to tangle with, the idea of being like, You have, you know, seated your responsibilities or whatever the, you know, castigation ends up becoming. Absolutely. And that's part of what I was, that's part of also what I was trying to do is, is, is, is, subvert that. And not only subvert it by putting, the subversion is putting the audience in her, in her reality totally.

so that there's no, there's no, there's no, there's no where else to go, but her experience and her reality and what, her, what she's feeling and what she's experiencing. Some of the things she's experiencing, we, we don't know if they could be happening or they could not be happening. It's, that's for the viewer to, to decide. And some of the things that she's doing are objectively, wrong. And some of the things she's doing, ride the line. Maybe, I don't know. And then some of the things she's doing, I know, I know, even when I'm writing the script, I'm going to lose some people here. It doesn't scare me. It doesn't scare me. Because one thing that I was, that I'm trying to do and I want to do in all my work, and I have done in my previous work, is put women characters on screen that we do not see on screen, but that we know they are real people that we have

encountered in life, whether, however it is, they are people that exist. When you go through life, there are some people who you don't like. When you go through life, there's, some people who you like, but then make some choices that you don't like, and you have to make a decision on how you're going to handle that as a person. Film is an art form that is a reflection of life. It is a moving, breathing, a live thing. That's what makes it different than a painting or even a book or something like that. And so I think the whole idea of, it being this taboo thing to have the audience have to grapple with those things while watching a film doesn't make sense to me because you grapple with it every single moment of your day,

even going and get your coffee, even doing anything, much less with your actual intimate circle of people, your spouse or your children or your parents or whatever, you're grappling constantly. with human beings who you don't who are who you don't like all the time but that you have a but that you um it's an empathy test it's an empathy test can you and that's what film is to me can you sit in the dark for two hours and get into somebody else's experience that has nothing to do with yours and find yourself in it. And when you find yourself in it, that's empathy. And that's going to erase the concept of, do I like this person or do I not like this person? It becomes beyond that. And also, I have this idea, too, that if you watch a film

and a character offends you, you need to look at yourself. You need to look at yourself. You need to need to look at yourself because what about it is bothering you so much and i'm interested in that i'm interested i'm interested in in that in reactions to my film but beyond that just in uh as a as a person i'm fascinated by human behavior i'm fascinated by uh the things that people do that don't make sense uh to me um and how how to make sense of it because we're because i'm a person too So why am I a person that didn't do that? And that person is. And that's all in the movie. That's all in the movie. Me, myself, I went and I went to the bathroom and turned the light on and would spend the night in there with wine and junk food. Linda leaves the hotel entirely. There's a difference there. There's a big difference there. And what? What I'm fascinated in is where does that division come, come, and how do we feel about it? And at the end of the day, like, art to me is communication, whether any form, whether it's

a song or painting or a book or a poem or a film or whatever, it's a form of communication. and there's films that you consume that are to be sat there and be entertained and then there are films that are to be experienced and those are the ones that are communicating to you and so if you turn your back on it it's because you don't want to be in that conversation That's what I feel.

So I have been thinking about how to share this movie with my wife. We have a young daughter, and I suspect that the loss of self that is a big part of the story, I think it's fair to guess she'll click with it. But I also think it will make her feel something that maybe she doesn't want to feel. Like she'll identify, but it will hurt. I'm speculating. I don't want to speak for her, obviously. But it's very hard to not think about that watching the film from my perspective.

Absolutely. And I guess I'm curious about how you feel about that, about like, is it better to see something and click with it even though it hurts? Or maybe how you think about even what people have told you about experiencing the movie because it is so intimate and specific. And there are not a lot of movies about this. No, there's not. I think that one of the things about the movie that's been most powerful for people that people have directly expressed to me is that is that thing that you're saying is that these are things that like women are trained the whole movie is about something that women are trained not to talk.

about because these feelings feel like a betrayal to your child. You can love your child and also say or feel that sometimes you need a break. Sometimes it's too much. Sometimes you've reached your point. Sometimes you just want to take a nap and you can't believe that you can't because you're responsible for this other human being. Sometimes you want to just run away and you can't because again, you're responsible for a human life. And in our culture, we do this really weird thing to women where it's like mothers are like revered and oh, a mother is the best thing. But it's also completely disrespected and dismissed and ignored as far as what it actually is to be a mother. And let's broaden it out to a caretaker, of any sort. The responsibility of that can sometimes feel crushing,

crushing, and the 24 hours of it, the 24 hour, like, it doesn't stop. And you are constantly being needed for something, and you're constantly fulfilling needs. And then at a certain point, And it's sort of like, well, I have needs. I'm a human being. I was a fully formed human being individual person before I had a child. Why does that change once I have a child? Why is that expected to change once I have a child? Now, it doesn't mean that I'm condoning the things that Linda does.

But the things that Linda does are come out. of that feeling. They come out of that feeling. And so I can, I can, I can, I can have them in a film, uh, because it's not as scary as actually like thinking of doing it yourself. And the idea that, um, women don't even talk about this with each other, by the way. Uh, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is taboo to say, my kid really annoyed me. last night. In this one millisecond of a moment, I didn't like my kid. But you're a human being

and your kid's a human being. And that's normal. It doesn't mean that you're bad. And then there's this whole other thing that we do to mothers, which is that the only way we can talk about it is by making it a joke. Like bad moms. Like, oh, it's wine o'clock, mommy juice, like all that stuff. and making a joke out of it, right? And it's like, no, moms, when kids go to bed, moms drink. And why? Because it's a way to escape without actually doing what Linda does, which is putting her child actually in danger by leaving the premises.

And so it's like if somebody, a woman, sees themselves, in the film in a way that scares them that's the thing that they that they should be thinking about about themselves and and and and and why it scares them and and how maybe to recalibrate things so that it's not something that is a part of their life because it doesn't have to be so I have a related question and if it's too personal you tell me Has your daughter seen this movie? No. She's not seen the movie.

She says to me that she doesn't ever want to see the movie. And that's fine. What does she know about it? What she knows about it is that it is inspired by an experience that we had together. But the way I've explained it to her is that it is not a story. about the daughter, because I always said, I said to her from the beginning, if you want to tell your story, you can do that one day if you want to. I'm not telling your story. What I'm doing is telling a story about a mother in this situation. And the mother is, is me, but it's my feelings.

It's not, it's not my, it's not about me either. And she understands it in that way. And it's accepts it in that way. She's very proud of the fact that at the end there's a card that dedicates it to her. Very proud of that. And she's very proud of me. But she said to me, is it okay if I never watched the movie? And I said, it's absolutely okay. It's okay with me. Because we also had a shared, we had a shared trauma. In the movie, Linda is running away from a very specific trauma that has to do with this situation. And she's running away. she's running away and she's running away by by drinking by doing drugs by literally running away by you know all of these things by doing trying to do breath work uh going you know and it's like

this idea where trauma it's inside of you whether you deal with it or not and it's going to get you it's going to get you and in this movie it gets her it slaps her in the face um and she she still can't deal with it. She still can't deal with it. And so it's talking up, so I explain it to her in that way, is that I, is that your story is your story. I have my own trauma about it. And that's what this movie is about. It's why I also make some conceptual choices like not showing the daughter. Does she know how it ends? No. Okay. No. No, she doesn't.

She knows very little about it, in fact. The reason that I don't show the daughter is for a couple reasons. One is, like I said, it's not the daughter's story. I wanted to very radically, you know, the bad version of this whole thing is a is like a slick sort of like lifetime movie. you know, mother on the verge, you know, we, we know those movies. We know those. You know, they exist. Um, this I want to do something different, which is no, no, no, but it's not about her and the daughter. It's about her. And the daughter is one of the things in her life that she feels oppressed by. And we, we hear her voice, but we don't see her. Um, there's two,

there's two reasons for that one is that linda cannot see her daughter in a figurative sense as anything other than something that's another thing that's oppressing her and put upon her and uh an obligation and needing her and and wanting from her um she can't see her as a as a as a little human person. She can't derive joy from her child. She's bitter about the fact that she can't be a regular mom, that she has to contend with this. This is not what she's signed up for, right?

And she's fighting against it. And then the other reason is that once you introduce the face of a child, just as human beings, the way we're programmed, your sympathy is going to go with the child. automatically we can't help it that's how we're programmed unless you have no soul so I'm having I'm having this character do things where I need that not to be a complication in the way that the audience is looking at this woman it's again an empathy test and if I was to have the daughter in there for the whole time

It wouldn't work. It wouldn't work. And then hopefully, you know, there's a payoff for the audience that I have, that, that I know works because people have expressed to me that it, it is a payoff that sticks to the landing. And it, and it's, it, it, it, it kind of speaks to everything that I just said. Everything that I just said becomes true. And I don't want to give it away. but you know it's a it's a also i want to say like in the script level i made that choice already that was one of the first choices i made that we're not going to see the daughter that was a real trust me moment uh for for everybody trust me trust me trust me i didn't know if it was going to work or not but i had to i had to i had to have everybody trust me that it was going to work and then i think it does work and I feel like it's one of the things that I'm like oh man I pulled that off

I think it works and I agree that it sticks the landing yeah thank you Mary we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what is the last great thing they have seen have you seen anything that you've liked recently well well

I haven't seen anything new that's okay could be anything because I can I I, when I'm creating, I can't take in new, other people, I don't want to take in other people's ideas. And this has been such a long process. But the last great thing I saw that is a really good question. I rewatched Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf recently.

I hadn't seen it since I was maybe in college. And it always was in my mind, it was in my mind as this thing. That was like the greatest example of a chamber piece for people in a room, all performance. The movie is performance. And then I was like, does this hold up? That it holds up. It holds up.

Elizabeth Taylor is kicking ass and taking names. and it is, I think, if probably most of your listeners have seen it, but if they have not, they should see it right away because it is an example of a movie that doesn't need anything but a great performance. So interesting too, because it's kind of similar to your movie, which is like it's a confrontation of discomfort, you know, that there is those conversations that those characters are having, they're rough, especially for that time in a movie.

It's rough, and it's, you know what I love about reference, like a pure reference is that like we watch all these movies, we digest them, they become part of our DNA, they become part of our, our, they sometimes change the way our brain works. They're inside our bodies. And if it comes out and work, in a way that I don't even know, that's a pure reference. It's like Orson Well says, like, The worst thing to happen to filmmaking is the homage. I agree. That's making movies about movies. And so when I watched it, I was like, this is my work. This is so in my work. But in a way that I didn't even think about when I was making the movie. It's a great one.

Mary, congrats on the film. Thanks for doing the show. Thank you so much. And thank you for having me. This was so fun. Thank you to Mary Bronstine. Thank you to Yassi. Thank you to C.R.

Thank you to Amanda. Thank you to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. What's happening next week? What are we doing? The other side of the festival post-mortem. That's right. So we split this episode in half, actually. We were originally going to also talk about a house of dynamite,

which was the big premiere that you saw at Venice. Right. So that film is hitting Netflix today. Yes. And we'll talk about it on Monday. We'll see you then. You know,