Tribeca Film Festival: Love & Family: BACK ROADS (With Interviews) & DISOBEDIENCE

Back Roads marks Alex Pettyfer’s directorial debut, and in the last year (with his performance in The Strange Ones) a sort of rebirth. This shows not only his ability to encapsulate sorrow and darkness in his acting, but also his attention behind the camera, and Back Roads is one heavy hitter.

Adapted from the Tawni O’Dell novel (who co-wrote the screenplay with Adrian Lyne), Back Roads is a web of human complexities, and an upheaval of emotion from within a dysfunctional family. Harley Altmyer (Pettyfer) isn’t prepared to take care of his three sisters when his mother (Juliette Lewis) goes to prison for the murder of their father. It’s overwhelming, and this young man’s suffering has only just begun.

It’s a tumultuous story, full of secrets, and uncertainties. Harley is miserable, stuck in a monotonous job, and tortured by his sister Amber (Nicola Peltz). He’s very shut down, with little affection and communication to his other sisters, Misty (Chiara Aurelia) and Jody (Hala Finley). Harley is attracted to the married Callie (Jennifer Morrison) where he seems to find his only recluse, even if it’s knowingly risky.

Back Roads not only pushes Pettyfer as a director, but also as an actor. It’s his best performance to date and he’s fearless here in some challenging takes. There are some terrific reflective shots, and moody flourishes by cinematographer Jarin Blaschke. Overall, the temperament is consistently gloomy, building towards a climax that matches the grinding chronicle.

There’s a lot to leave out, in fear of spoiling the finish of Back Roads, where everything finally builds, and the list of entanglements becomes truly clear. With everything involved in this movie, it could have been too much, but Pettyfer strikes a clean cut, making this drama ooze with honesty and intensity. It’s a compelling debut, with the entire cast emotionally invested.

A lot of narrative threads are in play here, with abuse (physical and sexual), depression, jealousy, loneliness and the answer to the question – what would you do for your family? I won’t ruin things here, but the better question for the Altmyers is, what wouldn’t you do?

Back Roads is a film that resonates, and even now – weeks after seeing it – I can’t quite get it out of my mind.

Fellow Film Inquiry writer Stephanie Archer and I were able to chat with some of the cast of Back Roads on the red carpet. Here’s what they had to say!

Jennifer Morrison

Kristy Strouse for Film Inquiry: What was it like working with a director who also starred in the film?

Jennifer Morrison: I was so impressed with the way that Alex was able to juggle both things, I was really blown away – especially having just directed Sun Dogs myself and having been through the process of being a first time filmmaker. I thought that he did an incredible job of balancing all the stresses of both positions. He was just really wonderful. He was a great director and a great scene partner. I was just blown away.

Was there anything about this character that intrigued you, that made you want to take the role?

Jennifer Morrison: Yeah, I felt like Callie was a character that is so different from anything that I’ve gotten to do in a really long time. She is someone who is very repressed in a certain way, and she’s not living the life that she wanted to live. There’s a complexity to her because she does love her family, and she does love her kids, but she also feels like she’s given up a lot. There’s a whole part of her that’s dying in a sort of way, and there’s a sexuality to her character that I usually don’t get to explore in a lot of the roles that I play. So, it was just exciting to take on a character that had this grit and edge and sort of a darkness in her, that I don’t feel like a lot of the characters in the last few years that I’ve played have really had.

How did you prepare for it?

Jennifer Morrison: Well, I read the novel a lot, I read it over and over. You know, every time I would dig into her sections I would find more and more detail, who someone is and what’s hiding in the actual novel. And I kept saying, “Gosh, I wish every script came with a novel! It’s so nice!” So, a lot of information came from that, but I was working to kind of build the idea of what she wanted her life to be. So, what the fantasy life was in her mind, so I could kind of feel what it was that was taken from her. Or not taken from her – because she didn’t reach for it or chose not to go after it – so I could feel the difference between what she had and what she was longing for.

I also know you have Fabled premiering too, is there anything else coming up you’d like to tell us about?

Jennifer Morrison: Yeah, Fabled is going to be premiering at Tribeca next week. And I was just in the film Superfly which will come out this summer, and I’m working right now in NY on a project and I think, I don’t know if it’s going to be called this in the long run, but right now it is called The Torture Room.

Hana Finley

Kristy Strouse for Film Inquiry: What was it like working on your first feature film?

Hana Finley: It was amazing. Once I read the script, we made it feel like we were a real family. I love working with all of the amazing people on this film.

So, it was a great experience?

Hana Finley: I just loved it.

Do you have anything else you are working on?

Hana Finley: My show Man with a Plan is coming up for season 3!

Chiara Aurelia

Stephanie Archer for Film Inquiry: What was it like working on this film?

Chiara Aurelia: It was amazing, the entire cast and crew came together to create what this is now, and everybody was so nice, and we became such a close family so it was amazing.

How did you come to be in the film?

Chiara Aurelia: Well, I was obsessed with the script when I read it and I wanted to be Misty more than anything, then I met Alex and we combined perfectly. We had such similar ideas about who Misty was and we came together to create this character and create a family dynamic and I felt like I got to be such an amazing part of this project, and it was a truly incredible experience.

There is some difficult, darker material in this movie, what was it like for you to have to tackle that and be a part of that?

Chiara Aurelia: It was challenging, but acting is a challenge and we are bringing out what is happening in real life and we are not creating something that’s never happened before, and we are doing the best we can to bring dark matters to light and for everybody to see them and experience them with us.

How did you get into that character?

Chiara Aurelia: I just tried to create Misty and tried to understand her based off the script, off of the book and to try to see how I could bring a part of myself into Misty as well. I wanted to stay to her character so yeah, it was amazing.

Film Inquiry would to thank Jennifer Morrison, Hana Finley, and Chiara Aurelia for taking the time to speak with us.

Disobedience (Sebastián Lelio)

Disobedience, based on the novel by Naomi Alderman, bubbles with a low crackle, impeding the passion and longing of forbidden love within this Jewish Orthodox community. It’s a story of repression, but also of freedom and of choice. In the opening scene, prior to the death that forms this feature, the Rabbi speaks, “What is this thing? Man, woman? It is a being with the power to disobey, alone among all the creatures, we have free will.”

The story begins with a death, but breathes with life. While the movie might nudge by, it flatters its source material, and just as our pained female leads do, we must occasionally bide our time for our independence.

Rachel Weisz (in a very restrained performance) plays Ronit, a New York photographer who returns home to London when her father, the renowned rabbi, passes away. Her re-entry back home isn’t filled with warmth (and neither is the movie, save for the spark between our leads) after she was previously shunned from the community.

After arriving she stays with her childhood friend (and her father’s pupil) Dovid (Alessandro Nivola). Nivola, who has always been an understated actor to me, manages to balance a very fine line between his own happiness and that of others, even if it threatens to derail his own. She soon finds out he’s married to Esti (Rachel McAdams), a teacher and prominent part of her past.

Their history together soon comes flourishing back, as their feelings, long forced into entombment, come to the surface once more. We soon learn that their intimacy, caught by her father, was what made Ronit leave originally. When someone witnesses a shared kiss between Esti and Ronit, Esti’s job is at jeopardy, and this time things won’t just get tucked away again – and as adults who yearn to be free, they can’t be.

Director Sebastián Lelio, fresh off his Oscar win for A Fantastic Woman, maintains a purposeful drab-nearly colorless palette, allowing the glow of our cast to provide the ambiance. He also co-wrote the script with Rebecca Lenkiewicz, and the stories fragility wrestles with its ability to engage, mostly keeping your attention because of the performances involved.

Both actresses do stunning work, with McAdam’s hunger and Weisz’s subtly. Their chemistry matures as the movie does, making the rekindling between them organic. They are like magnets throughout, and it’s only a matter of time before they crash together. Disobedience shows the importance of personal truth, even when the world attempts to disparage it, and it does so with a gentle, moving beauty.

Disobedience was released in the US on April 27, 2018, and will be released in the U.K. on November 30, 2018. For all international release dates, see here.