From left: stars Clare McNulty and Bridey Elliott with directors Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers.
We’ve been telling you about our unequivocal love for this dramedy about roommates who (in the words of Rogers) “love each other but they hate each other for loving each other,” but don’t take our word for it: Edelstein told the crowd at Tribeca Cinemas, “I think it could be a monster hit and I know at least one staggeringly important critic who thinks it’s a great film.”
But that staggeringly important critic did have one quibble, and it wasn’t the fact that the “Williamsburg” apartment where Harper and Allie’s epic odyssey begins was actually a Bushwick rental off of AirBNB: “The idea of going to the beach from Williamsburg via Park Slope and Prospect Park seemed a little odd to me,” he said. “I know that’s where they were picking up the drugs but that would seem to double the journey.”
Actually, what was weirder was that these guys didn’t know about the Rockabus (which returns Memorial Day weekend!).
But it was essential to take these characters out of their comfort zones, Rogers argued: “There’s something about Williamsburg and the privilege of it and the fantasia-like nature of it that is so… it’s an island, essentially — it’s an island in Brooklyn and Brooklyn is comprised of a lot of different cultures, so there was a really good chance to bring in a bigger kind of satire that comments on bigger things that they’re not necessarily so aware of but are in direct contact with — like classism and the racial issues and things like that.”
So when will this wonderful Brooklyn film — which just showed at Maryland and is also heading to the Berkshires and Little Rock — find a distributor and graduate from the festival circuit? “We’re in talks with U.S. companies and some international companies and hopefully getting closer to some things,” Rogers said.
