The Heaving ‘Wuthering Heights’ and the Throbbing ‘Pillion’: A Very Horny Valentine's Day Double Feature

8:29Amanda Dobbins:Well, and also what I get when I talk to folks about the book, they're like, oh, this is a story of vengeance and, like, revenge. Which is why I was so thrown off for Fennell to have the tagline for her Wuthering Heights be the greatest love story ever told. It's like, Wuthering Heights is a revenge story, not a love story.

8:47Sam Sanders:And it is also just a bunch of people like alone in the middle of nowhere going like making decisions that are very strange. There is like an isolated wild like gothic quality to all of it. But essentially I was handed this, you know, in my like nerdy girl era, like after the Austin along with Jane Eyre. And did you like the book? Yeah, I've always been more of an Austin than a Bronte, which, you know, like I do think there is a little bit of a divide there. But I think it was handed to me as kind of like, okay, now that you've read the comedy of manners, the stuff like now.

9:29Amanda Dobbins:Let's get dark.

9:30Sam Sanders:Right. You're going to understand the rejection of it. You're going to understand the weirdness of it. But it was presented as like not Girls Gone Wild, but like this is weird stuff is happening here. Yeah. And not as like star-crossed lovers.

9:44Sean Fennessey:Yeah. And I don't think anybody really understands the story that way, except for Emerald Fennell. She seems to be the only person who seems to be seeing the movie in that respect. Like if you look at the Robert Fuest version from 1970, famously with Timothy Dalton, one of the first big things that he ever did. I mean, Louis Bunuel did a version of this story. Jacques Rovet did a version of this story. We just talked about the 1992 version, which I still haven't seen, which is Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes in his first film role, actually. and then in 2011 Wuthering Heights Andrea Arnold made a version of it which tried to watch that last night it speaks to something that is in the novel that is sort of hard to parse which is some of the language she uses to describe Heathcliff's ethnicity or cultural background

10:28Amanda Dobbins:language of character

10:29Sean Fennessey:she is yes the end word threw me for a loop she uses the word gypsy to describe him but then later in the book she describes him as sort of having the whitest pallor possible like whiter than the wall So it's confusing who Heathcliff is meant to be and where he comes from because he's this youngling who comes from nowhere. He's kind of adopted into this higher class family. So we don't know. Is this a story about race? I think it is.

10:54Amanda Dobbins:And I think it needs to be. I think there are moments in the Fennell version of this film where you're like, this is supposed to be a person of color. Sorry to jump ahead, but there's a moment when Jacob Elordi is getting whipped and lashed and you see the lashes on his back. I'm like, OK. It's recalling like 12 Years a Slave. Right. Very overtly. And the 2011 version goes there. Heathcliff is played by a black person. And in that film, they're using the N-word. They're beating him. It's hard to watch. But it feels like the racial difference is something that the author of the original book intended to be a part of it.

11:32Amanda Dobbins:Well, yeah.

11:33Sam Sanders:Yeah. So there's a I'm just going to quote this great piece written by Jasmine Vajnani for the for New York magazine just for their book newsletter. So I like honestly don't know if we can even link to it, but it's great. It's called Book Gossip. And she spoke to a lot of literary historians and critics about this and about the language. And like, is Heathcliff white? Is he not white? What like what kind of not white? Like what would Bronte's intention have been at the time? What would have audiences have understood? And the scholars are like, he's definitely not white in the way that the other characters who identify as white understand themselves.

12:12Sam Sanders:Yes. And that class and race or ethnicity are a huge theme of this novel and the relationship or the rejection of Heathcliff and his relationship to the Lennon family, to Kathy's family, etc. etc like the the genealogical or the you know what the actual descent is there are lots of

12:34Amanda Dobbins:interpretations that's that indian descent indian descent because there is that some people suggest

12:39Sam Sanders:irish um because of just like time and place and where so i i don't know whether there's like an actual answer yeah like according to the scholars i thought this was very interesting i mean i i i I don't know the answer. But you're right to the point that, and I guess I don't know whether Bronte thinks that he's specifically black.

13:00Sean Fennessey:He is different enough that in this world, he is considered less than. And he speaks a different language at first in the book, no?

13:07Sam Sanders:Yeah, a gibberish that no one understands. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

13:09Amanda Dobbins:He is a foreigner, which is why it's so strange in the finale version of this film to see that played by Jacob Elordi. Like, sure, let it be a white guy, But like that one, he's so central casting. Yes. And he he does a heartthrob.

13:27Sam Sanders:Yes. Yeah. Yeah. For like for brooding. Yeah.

13:31Amanda Dobbins:Like they like. Yeah. It was a weird choice. It was a weird choice. And it felt like Emerald Fennell could have made a more interesting film and a braver film had she grappled at all with race.

13:44Sam Sanders:Well, the book gossip piece also points out that then all of the other characters who are pretty clearly white in the book, or at least their descriptions are not as developed, are then cast by, played by non-white actors. So there's kind of like a race blind thing going on here, which is...

14:06Amanda Dobbins:Which is always hard to pull off.

14:07Sam Sanders:Which is hard to pull off, but also ignores what is in the book, which is that race and class, which are intertwined in this society and also in the world at large, are a major part of why the characters are doing what they're doing.

14:22Sean Fennessey:There you go. It is a really interesting and maybe inappropriate stroke that she has taken here. So it's not just that Hong Chao is playing Nellie, the sort of the handmaiden to Catherine. Shahzad Lateef is playing Linton, the Edgar Linton, the sort of the man who Catherine eventually marries. Which is crazy because he was too hot to hate. I'm like, this guy's attractive. I don't dislike him. Yeah. A lot of the Lintons are handsome, but they're stiffs. Yeah. anyhow the fact that she's doing that and then casting ultimately a lordy and also owen cooper as the young version of he was an adolescent and he was an adolescent so she's kind of going like bad boy bad boy like these are the kind of the the classical bad boys in their age range right now but they're white yeah so for her to go against that but also go against so much of the intentionality and the purpose of the novel i kind of wanted to talk about the idea of adaptation with you guys before we get into the text of the movie.

15:19Sean Fennessey:So a deeply faithful adaptation of a novel runs the great risk of being very boring.

15:26Amanda Dobbins:And in the case of this book, Wether in Heights, it would have been unable to understand.

15:32Sean Fennessey:It would have been impossible in a two hour movie, right? This is a two hour and 15 minute movie. And it's a sprawling novel that covers 70 years. It's a really big book. I think you can go too far with an adaptation too or maybe not maybe just too wrong and there's something about the choices that she's making in order to make the kind of movie that she wants to make which is obviously a story of epic desire and sex and you know a tragic romance that's the thing that she really wants to make and she does make that here in this movie but that isn't really what Wuthering Heights is it's like it is much more it's not a love story it's a revenge story it's a revenge story And it's about like resentment and class warfare and kind of like cultural frustration, like the lack of understanding between people.

16:21Sean Fennessey:And also. And ownership and property and like who gets which house. Yeah.

16:26Sam Sanders:Yeah.

16:26Sean Fennessey:This one's not really about any of that stuff. Like it doesn't, it kind of like, it glances at it, but it doesn't.

16:31Amanda Dobbins:It removes characters that would have made those points more clear. The biggest difference between Fennell's version and the book and most other versions is that she loses the mean brother. Yeah. The mean brother is the source of a lot of the conflict and the motivation for Heathcliff to be a jerk the rest of the book and film. So you can't make it a revenge story once the brother is gone, I think.

16:58Sean Fennessey:Yeah, I think it's worth putting some context around that. Sorry. In the novel, there's a father figure in the film. The father figure represents essentially the entire Earnshaw family. He is the person who brings Heathcliff into this home, introduces him to his entire family, especially his daughter Catherine. In the novel, the father brings that character home, but it's the brother who becomes kind of the rival and the person who makes Heathcliff feel less than him. And antagonizes him. And eventually it sort of enslaves him. Right.

17:24Sam Sanders:Also just in the novel, there are like heavy implications that Heathcliff is being brought home because he is the like bastard child of Mr. Lenton. There is. There's an insinuation. There's insinuation and I think like in that time, it just sort of would have been questions of like, I guess I'm assuming that this is now you're responsible for this kid. So but also so then the rivalry between the two brothers is also hinting at like this brother understands him as a threat because he is his half brother. Yeah.

18:00Amanda Dobbins:And like that creates so much of the tension. Totally.

18:02Sean Fennessey:It helps explain Heathcliff's psychology, which is that he feels like he's been made to feel less than. And then that makes you understand his, not just his desire for Catherine, but the kind of impossibility of Catherine and Heathcliff. Which is a great idea.

18:17Sam Sanders:And they're sort of related. Yes.

18:19Sean Fennessey:And maybe actually related. Oh, snap. That would have been interesting in the movie.

18:23Sam Sanders:There is also part of this, which is, and there is a lot, they say brother and sister a lot in the first 15 minutes of the movie where I'm like, I guess you were maybe trying to hint at this.

18:36Sean Fennessey:It has that Game of Thrones incest kink thing that they're trying to, she's kind of like nodding at it, but she's not really going for it. And that's kind of, to me, a failure of the movie in general.

18:45Amanda Dobbins:I missed that point. Yeah. Oh, damn.

18:47Sean Fennessey:So anyway, you're right. But you're right. Removing the brother. It changes the whole plot. Removing the perspective of the book, I think is really important too, because the first part of the book is essentially a lodger comes to stay at Wethering Heights, or is it to stay at the lint? to stay at the Linton. The Grange? Is that what it's called? Cross Forest Grange. And that is where the Linton estate was. And it's many years in the future. And this lodger comes and discovers a diary and he starts to learn about Catherine and Heathcliff. And then he thinks he sees Catherine's ghost. And then that is like the launch pad into the story.

19:21Sean Fennessey:So we're starting in the distant future. Yes. And then we're going back and Nellie, the handmaiden, tells the story. Yeah. And we're meant to understand her, as you said, as an unreliable narrator. She's a person who has her own motivations and her own interests. She's in the movie. And she does stuff in the movie. She does. But it's not from her perspective.

19:40Amanda Dobbins:Yeah, it's not from her perspective, but I found myself leaving the movie the most upset with Nellie. Because I felt like she was just getting involved too much and making shit strange. I don't want to say more and spoil it. But I found that a lot of movement that would have gone to the brother had he been there kind of had to go to Nellie.

20:02Sean Fennessey:I agree. It's an interesting choice of adaptation and I know why she did it. And she made the movie that she wanted to make. You know why she did it because I don't. Well, I think she felt like she wanted to spend more time with Catherine and Heathcliff. That like the sort of the people that were orbiting them were of less interest to her. And there's just a lot more of these two characters together, as far as I can tell, in any of the adaptations, and at least in the novel based on what I've read. So she wanted to make Romeo and Juliet. She wanted to make a movie where these two people are kind of desperately coming together over and over again.

20:33Sean Fennessey:And it's against other people's wills, but those people don't matter.

20:36Sam Sanders:She has another character in the movie who is the best character played by, or the best performance by Alice and Oliver.

20:44Sean Fennessey:Isabella, yes.

20:45Sam Sanders:Retell the story of Romeo and Juliet. so which you know is clearly a signal poster like if that's what's going on she was very good oh she had the dog scene yeah she's great she's really good that was great she also was in

20:56Sean Fennessey:Saltburn one of the best things in Saltburn as well yeah

20:59Sam Sanders:but and it is true that the like the batty women side characters are the best parts of Emerald Fennel movies see also Carrie Mulligan in Saltburn but that was just confusing to me because Romeo and Juliet is like very different from Wuthering Heights And I, excuse me, I have read the book and I guess I'm not devoted to it. So I was not particularly concerned with this as a, as a faithful adaptation. I'm still really riding my like train dreams wave of, you know, if you don't, if you don't bring the expectations, then, you know, magic can happen. But I just, I don't understand what I, you can't use the puzzle pieces of Wuthering Heights to make Romeo and Juliet.

21:48Sam Sanders:And I just watched it and it didn't, they didn't fit together for me on its face.

21:56Sean Fennessey:But I think you can if you do it better. I think the challenge here is that I'm not like a, I'm not a loyalist when it comes to faithfully adapting a novel. I don't think you absolutely have to do everything intended. In fact, I think you can distort theme based on the time period that you're in and change the meaning of it. I just think the meaning here is meant to be one thing, which is that we live in a more highly sexualized world where we can more confidently talk about what we want and how we want it. But then the movie doesn't really live up to that idea. It doesn't really give us a movie that truly adequately, I think, portrays that idea.

22:35Sean Fennessey:So the thing that she's going for, she doesn't get. And in the process, she kind of breaks Weathering Heights over her knee. And you're like, why'd you break Weathering Heights

22:42Amanda Dobbins:to not make the movie you think you want to make? Well, and I think what viewers have kind of been promised in the run up to this film's release was that, oh, it's sexy. It's kinky. It's Emerald Fennell. And then at every moment when this film is supposed to be sexy and erotic, I found it gimmicky and too much.

23:00Sam Sanders:Right.

23:01Amanda Dobbins:So you should talk about that.

23:02Sam Sanders:Yeah. Well, I think that there is there's there's the foreplay section of the novel of the of the film. And then there's once they actually consummate their affair, which we should know doesn't happen in the book. And it's like it's not Henry Miller. OK, like like no one is fucking in Wuthering Heights. It's the book of yearning. And also and also it's been pointed out that like Emily Bronte has probably never actually probably did not have sex in her life just based on what we know biographically. Listen, it was a tough time for a lot of people. You don't want to be a lot of things in 1847, but like an unmarried woman like living in Yorkshire is on the list.

23:45Sam Sanders:That's why you write Wuthering Heights. What the fuck else are you doing? But so and also and she had a wild imagination in a lot of ways, but I don't think adventures towards like actual sex.

23:56Amanda Dobbins:Yeah.

23:56Sam Sanders:So putting aside the consummation, everything ahead of time is like that classic emerald fennel. Like sex is like is very viscous and gross.

24:08Amanda Dobbins:Viscous is the word. The slug, the bread. Yeah, the eggs.

24:12Sam Sanders:Even like the the wall of her bedroom slash boudoir is like supposed to be skin of her face, but also, you know, looks like skin that you kind of can like. That's great, great production design where it gets pushed. It's like sort of dimpled. But yeah, it's like really like ooey, gooey, gross, very memorable. She has a way to this, just like the bathtub. But it doesn't turn me on.

24:38Amanda Dobbins:It doesn't turn me on.

24:40Sam Sanders:But it's scary. It's like she is better portraying sex as like, like you have sex and you die is, you know, something that a lot of women of my generation were taught. and also like clearly a motif in her movies. All three of her movies, yeah. And so she's portraying the idea of it, like she's very creative, very visually imaginative and can portray sex as not like sexy, but as like the evil around the corner. Yes. But when you get to the actual sex, I was like, this is pretty boring.

25:10Sean Fennessey:Yeah, let's talk about that. Because there are, it's not just like two or three, you know, visual representations of that gooeyness that you're talking about. There's like 10 or 20. The eggs show up several times. Yeah, the eggs cracked underneath the bed. You know, you mentioned the scarred back, and the scarred back, it's not just that it's the scarred back, but it's the sweating scarred back, which is almost meant to, there's something... It's supposed to be hot, and I'm like, girl, it's not. Kind of interestingly, like, dangerously kinky going on there, but she doesn't really explore it. She just shows us an image and makes us think about it a little bit.

25:39Sean Fennessey:Yes. You know, the movie opens, also, with this groaning sound. Oh, my goodness. And the groaning sound, we think, is a man masturbating, maybe climaxing and in fact it's a guy who's being hanged and his neck is not broken and he's just choking which is another kind of like we're bringing you to the edge of climax and this is a movie that basically does that like it keeps trying to get you to get off but then when they do have sex they're just fully clothed you know it's in the rain by the corset

26:09Amanda Dobbins:or something it's just

26:10Sean Fennessey:yeah I like that image not physically possible yeah that was a bit strange but interesting image yeah but like there's no nudity in this movie and I don't need it to be pornography but like if you're gonna break the text and you're gonna redefine what Wuthering Heights is and you're gonna cast Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie they're just gonna be fully clothed in three sex scenes? He takes his shirt off

26:31Sam Sanders:and you do notice it. Well I do because I was like there's a bicep because there's also I mean we'll talk about their performances but there's like not a lot of chemistry between them. He was sexier

26:43Amanda Dobbins:in Frankenstein.

26:44Sam Sanders:And he is kind of also doing Frankenstein for the first half of the movie. but there's not a lot of heat between them the blocking is sort of unimaginative they're just like in a dining room you know it's not there and like maybe maybe if you want to be generous there's an argument that it's like that's the point that you know the consummation is the letdown and this is a movie about desire that's not what the movie tells us

27:13Sean Fennessey:it's not I agree

27:14Sam Sanders:like I said I don't think it gets there

27:17Sean Fennessey:Yeah, I think that would have been a really interesting way to tell the story. But they are into it for each other. We're not really as into it when we're watching it. Or at least we weren't. I mean, I think people are really going to like this movie, I think. And I wanted to talk a little bit about that, which is sort of like what is happening culturally and why a movie like this is so anticipated. Because you mentioned you watched Heated Rivalry. And Romanticy is the most reliable thing at the Barnes & Noble around the corner from your home right now. and we've been talking about Colleen Hoover movie adaptations for the last 12 months.

27:49Sean Fennessey:What do you think is like - People are horny again and I like that. Why do you think that is?

27:53Amanda Dobbins:I think, you know, there was a moment and it was much covered that the MCU and Marvel and the superherofication of movies made movies and TVs a bit more sexless. I think we've turned the corner on that and now it's sexy again. People want to see sex and they're unashamed to see it on screen. And so in that moment, when you see heated rivalry work because there's fucking.

28:17Sean Fennessey:Yes.

28:18Amanda Dobbins:And you see in Pillian, it works because there's fucking. Right. It's so weird to see Emerald Fennell in that moment. We're going to talk about what's missing from those two films. Yes, yes. I also, it's like, I've been trying to figure out what motivates Emerald Fennell to make this kind of movie and to do sex this way and to do pain this way and to do pleasure this way. I found this one podcast where she was talking about her motivation to get into film. She talked about how when she was seven years old, she goes to see Jurassic Park with her family while they're on holiday in America. It gets to the scene where the raptors come into the kitchen.

28:54Amanda Dobbins:It scares her so much. It's so visceral for her. She throws up in the theater, but she stays and she keeps watching and she tells her parents, I'm staying. And it's like, oh, that's your kink. You want it to kind of hurt a little bit. You want the pain. You want the suffer. And that is your philosophy of sex on screen. It is not mine. It's not mine.

29:17Sean Fennessey:It's not mine either. But I want an artist who's willing to do that. And she commits to it. I'm interested in that. Okay. Let me just, last night I had a very interesting experience. I went to the new Beverly for a double feature. Double feature was famous Japanese film called In the Realm of the Senses, which is a similar, different, but similarly sensational movie about a doomed couple who are obsessed with each other and have sex. The reason the movie is famous is because all of the sex scenes are unsimulated. So it is effectively arthouse pornography. And it is very dramatic and intense. And all month this month at the New Beverly, they're showing kind of erotic cinema to pay tribute to the theater's history when it used to be basically a porno theater for a few years.

30:01Sean Fennessey:And then it was doubled with this movie Blood's Battered Bride, which is like just a cult movie that is fun. But watching in the realm of the senses, which is there's nothing like it because it's Nagisa Oshima so it's like a real master filmmaker making pornography that is transgression that's pain for pleasure like that and I know that Warner Brothers is never going to make in the realm of the senses and I'm not saying that she should and it's not a standard that I want to hold her to but it feels like she really comes up short on that idea so many times that it makes you wonder like what's what maybe it's just that that's her taste is like the 30 % of BDSM that she's into?

30:40Sean Fennessey:It's funny,

30:40Amanda Dobbins:you mentioned the word edging. It's hard to be frank here. The point of edging is that eventually you get off. This film never gets off. It never gets off. And you tease it, you're kneading the bread and it's fucking. The snail is sliming and it's fucking. And it's like, everything is like, the eggs are fucking and then no one fucks and no one resolves and it's like,

31:02Sean Fennessey:damn it, Emeril Fanel. Damn it. In the realm of the senses, we literally see human ejaculate. There's nothing even close to the old metaphor. They do.

31:13Sam Sanders:They do. They like a lot. You never see Dick, which we'll talk about. Season two. There's still time. But, I mean, the thing is, is that you're both right that in terms of, I guess, emotionally or the tone of the film, she never gets off, but she still does have to shoot sex scenes. And that's kind of the problem is that like both the text and you can tell like her interest and what or what she finds sexy is in is in the foreplay is in the restraint is in the is like it is in the punishment is in the is in the longing is in the it not happening.

31:52Amanda Dobbins:Yeah.

31:53Sam Sanders:But then this this adaptation because of like the pop cultural moment has to add a lot of sex. And it's not there. It's not there in the filmmaking. It's not there in the chemistry. it's like the story I guess you know it's fine but it is also one of those things where the puzzle pieces of what they've laid up it's like I guess like they could have sex for a while and it's fine even that she's like she's like I'm pregnant but I'm not going to tell him but we're not then paternity doesn't become an issue at any point it was very weird

32:25Amanda Dobbins:not to keep mentioning her on this podcast but it was a TCM podcast talking pictures she's talking about her philosophy of film and besides that whole Jurassic Park story, which explains everything. She also at one point was like, I don't like happy movies. I don't like movies that just like hold your hand. I want a movie to like kick you and scratch you. Yeah.

32:44Sean Fennessey:That's my favorite thing. It's not my favorite thing. It's not my favorite thing. I love that. And I don't think that she really pulls that off. That's my... That's the thing. It's like, if you're going to do it, do it all the way that way. Yeah, yeah. This one is trying to toe both.

32:55Amanda Dobbins:Yeah, toe the line.

32:56Sean Fennessey:Yeah. I think a lot of it is around resolution in her films. You know, like Promising Young Woman I watched the first time and I was like, this is a pretty interesting exploration of it's like a rape revenge movie for the 2020s post me to yes toxic masculinity like there should be modern set movies about this i thought she totally like spit the bit in the last 10 minutes where she was like actually we do need the cops to help arrest people and it was like the whole point was that the police weren't listening to the people who were saying that they had been victimized or assaulted anyway um so that doesn't make sense salt burn the last 10 minutes i find like incoherent i'm like is it because he felt like he was like a lower class and so he had to destroy them was was it because he was queer and he wasn't able to communicate about that like what was he just the sociopath like what no

33:44Amanda Dobbins:explanation she also handled race really strangely in that film like there was one biracial character who's also gay and you get that he's supposed to be performing some version of blackness and queerness, but it all felt like it was tacked on. She also strikes me as a filmmaker.

34:00Sam Sanders:She's like, here's your one. Here are all your things in one issue.

34:02Amanda Dobbins:She strikes me as a filmmaker, and this is no harm, no foul, no shade. She feels most comfortable in a sandbox that is pretty white. And I'm not mad at that. Do your thing.

34:12Sean Fennessey:It is her right to do that. It is her right. I actually don't want her writing a black or Indian Heathcliff if she doesn't know how to do it. Now that said, she could work with other writers and figure it out.

34:23Amanda Dobbins:That's true. But we're also in this moment of like singular talents that do it all themselves. Yeah.

34:27Sam Sanders:Right. Or you could just adapt a different novel that is like more in line with what you're talking about. Like just make Romeo and Juliet. It's fine. There have been a lot of those.

34:37Amanda Dobbins:Or just write a whole fresh new love story that is taking bits of what you liked reading growing up and make a brand new thing that is not weighed down by the expectations of such an iconic piece of IP. like there's so much expectation sitting over Fennell's film that even if she did it 25, 30 % better we'd still be, you know, taking kicks at it.

35:02Sam Sanders:Okay, so I want to, I put this question in the doc but like I want to ask you this. Is she making a movie? Does she think that this movie is like romantic or sexy or like is she exploring like, you know, a tragic love story in this? does she think that these, or is this total provocation? And is it like, not quite satire, but is the whole thing tongue in cheek? Like I, it's a genuine question. I can't tell what the intention of the movie's like tone and emotions are.

35:38Sean Fennessey:Well, we should note that the title of the film is in quotation marks, Weathering Heights.

35:42Amanda Dobbins:Which is so annoying.

35:44Sean Fennessey:It's a little like first year college creative writing, you know? Like it's not, But I do understand what she intends by that, which is like she is saying that I'm going to do something different. And this is like a text that many people know and understand. And this is what I take from it and what I am interested in. I think that the question is a little bit the answer to the question that you're asking is a little bit confused by a couple of other choices. Like in addition to some of that production design, like you've got these completely like a historical anachronistic costume designs. Which are really, really good.

36:19Sean Fennessey:gowns beautiful gowns but they're like made of cellophane and plastic and materials that you just wouldn't find in that kind of costume which is not a bad thing but it is a choice that also puts the quotation mark around the movie you've also got this score by charlie xcx which I kind of liked when it first appears I'm really into it it is interesting and then but that does kind of lead me to where my head is with her in general as a filmmaker which is the movie I think is at it's best when it's in montage and is a music video I was going to say She's a music video director. And the filmmaker that she most reminds me of and that she really feels like the spiritual heir to is Baz Luhrmann.

36:55Sean Fennessey:Now, some people love Baz Luhrmann. I don't. And I really like his Romeo and Juliet, and that's pretty much where it stops for me because I felt like he made the ultimate music video adaptation in Romeo and Juliet, where it's like the cutting style, the color, the recreation of that world, I thought was so inventive and cool. And then I just felt like he kept sputtering. Now, I'm kind of on the outside. A lot of people love his movies. They love Moulin Rouge. They love Gatsby. They even love his Elvis. I didn't really care for any of those movies. But they hit a similar note to me, which is like, but they put so much time and effort into all the stuff, the way things look and the way that they feel.

37:32Sean Fennessey:But the idea is like feels very barren.

37:35Amanda Dobbins:But here's the difference between Baz Luhrmann and Imran Fennell, at least with this movie. Baz Luhrmann at some point is going to have fun. He has fun Romeo and Juliet, even though it is a tragedy. It's true. no part of her Wuthering Heights felt fun to me. I don't know. Did it even feel fun to you?

37:53Sam Sanders:No, and I also didn't think it was funny. I think she thought it was funny. I do as well. And there's like the Kathy character in particular was really annoying. What was your take on the Bark Like a Dog scene?

38:06Amanda Dobbins:It threw me for a loop and I was like, where is this coming from?

38:08Sam Sanders:I just like the, there's, she's trying to do like plucky, independent, you know, there's like a little bit of like girl power running or girl boss running through it that that I don't care for. And then I think like Margot Robbie is bringing a little bit too much Barbie to the performance, at least when she's trying to do comedy. And I mean, comedy is very hard to do. And and if you just don't get the tone right, then it doesn't it doesn't communicate. But like it was not fun. And I also I did not laugh.

38:39Amanda Dobbins:Also, the the scenery and the imagery and the lighting doesn't lend itself to comedy. I found it to be a very dark and dim film, which was wild because the costumes are so great. The rooms are so beautiful. And it was hard to see some of it.

38:54Sam Sanders:It was weird to me. So let's talk about this because you have informed me that this was shot on 35 millimeter and VistaVision. We did not see it on film.

39:03Sean Fennessey:I don't know. I don't know how they projected it in the room. We saw it. Yeah. And we all saw it together. We should say. Yeah.

39:08Sam Sanders:I don't think that we I don't know if we saw it on VistaVision, but like what's going on with how it was giving

39:13Amanda Dobbins:I mean, Frankenstein is like the darkness of that. Yeah, like the darkness.

39:17Sam Sanders:And also, you know, there's so much effort put into the costumes and the production designs on these films. And it's like intricate and ornate. And then there's something about the lighting or the way it's shot or the way it's being projected where it looks like strangely flat. I'm like, I'm sorry. It didn't work. Wuthering Heights looked like a flip, like, you know, like an Echo Park, like the, you know, like modern farmhouse or whatever, like what are we doing you know I said to you when we walked out that you can and this is not we all wear makeup or I wear makeup I'm wearing it right now so wearing makeup is cool but you can see Margot Robbie's makeup and not in a like she's getting sick spoiler alert and so you're

40:03Sean Fennessey:or in the Marie Antoinette way where it's sort of like this purposeful showy you know like a demonstration of class

40:09Sam Sanders:yeah you can see the powder are like sitting up like on this skin at certain points. And that's not a fault of makeup application. That's I have been noticing this on like more and more. Honestly, like a lot of like Netflix streaming shows where I think there's just something about like, what is it? Like, what are we not calibrating where like the texture? Because I think it really takes away from the visual achievement of this film. I did not think that this looked that good, which is wild because the costumes are so

40:42Amanda Dobbins:great. It was like a waste of opportunity.

40:43Sam Sanders:Those veils when she's, anytime they're outside, anytime they're on the moors and the wind's going and the veil is framing Margot Robbie's.

40:49Amanda Dobbins:Or like the red dress that goes into the red floor in the room with the fireplace made of plaster hands. Light that better. It's gorgeous. Light it better.

40:57Sam Sanders:And when they're using color in the right way, it looks amazing. But you mentioned music videos and that there's like one montage when like Margot Robbie's like now, you know, now I'm rich and now I'm like now I'm doing my girl boss thing.

41:11Sean Fennessey:My name's Linton now.

41:12Sam Sanders:And they've cut it to a try. And it is a music video. And I said to Sean afterwards that he wouldn't understand the reference. But like that is literally what a Taylor Swift video looks like in like theme. And I don't say that as a compliment, even though I do enjoy the music of Taylor Swift when it is edited. So I don't know. I don't understand why this doesn't look like it.

41:36Sean Fennessey:I mean, look, the movie is shot by Lena Sangren. You can make the case he's one of the five or ten most interesting cinematographers in the world. These are the movies he's made recently. La La Land, First Man, No Time to Die, Don't Look Up, Babylon, Saltburn, and Wuthering Heights. He's shooting Dune Part 3 right now. He's replacing Greg Fraser to shoot Dune Part 3. He is a heavyweight cinematographer. I also don't think this film looks very good. I don't know why. I don't really understand the lighting that you're discussing. I think I also I think that there's an idea that is inherent in the story and also that I think Emerald Fennel is trying to like explode in the movie, which is the colorful lavishness of high class and the dinginess of low class.

42:18But I feel like she's brought the same lighting rig from the dingy part to the beautiful part.

42:23Sam Sanders:Yeah.

42:23Sean Fennessey:And if that were an idea along the lines of the one that you were describing where it's like the sex is the bad part, actually, it's like the letdown that maybe there's something to that. But there's I find it hard to believe that that was the intention to make like the garishness not appealing. Garishness is the point. I mean, that's really what she does now. Saltburn is very similarly kind of constructed. Yeah. That home, that estate is meant to be sort of ridiculous in its opulence. It just doesn't. I think it works.

42:49Sam Sanders:It works more in Saltburn. I do wonder whether time periods is a part of it. Salt burn is better lit. I remember it was. Well, yeah, but a lot of it's like outside. Like the MGMT part is, you know, again.

43:00Sean Fennessey:Again, to the music video part.

43:01Sam Sanders:Yeah, once again, shoot outside for the love of God. Just, you know, a big kick in the lighting right. I mean, that's a good, that's something she does well.

43:08Sean Fennessey:Like you said, on the moors in this film, that's some of the best stuff. When Catherine goes outside and begins masturbating privately in front of the winds and then is discovered by Heathcliff and then they have their sort of like that conversation. That was the only time in the movie when I was like, I'm really locked in. Like, where is this going to go now? Because now we have reached this kind of critical confrontation between how will she change this book into this movie? And you get that moment. He lifts her by the harness. Does he put her hands in his mouth or does he just smell them? I can't remember.

43:39Sean Fennessey:I think he puts them in his mouth. And you're like, okay, you're going for it. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going.

43:46Sam Sanders:Well, but I mean, that's sort of the problem. I'm like, that moment before you keep going is what she's really good at. You're good at the edge and you never get off.

43:54Amanda Dobbins:But she keeps going. You never get off.

43:56Sam Sanders:And then that becomes a problem, you know? Which, like, in a more interesting filmmaker's hands, like, could be interesting, right? But I don't think it's thinking about it in those terms.

44:09Amanda Dobbins:Pileon gets off. Pileon is just as visceral, just as, like, the sex is painful and weird as well. but they get off.

44:20Sean Fennessey:I think there's something interesting about how there's an attempt to line up the power dynamics between Catherine and Heathcliff, whereas I think in the novel, it's meant to always be uneven, where for the longest time, Catherine holds all the power, and then Heathcliff grabs the power with both his wealth. Yeah. We should say in the novel, the brother character who's excised from this adaptation eventually becomes the owner of Weathering Heights, and he's an alcoholic, and he has debts, And so Heathcliff buys the estate from him. And then later in the novel, he dies. And his like, the way in which Heathcliff rises socially, romantically, is really important.

45:00Amanda Dobbins:Also, this movie never gives Heathcliff enough time to do all of that.

45:04Sean Fennessey:Yes, that's a five minute period in the movie after he has married Isabella and kind of made her his sex slave. And so you don't really get any of that psychology that comes across in the other adaptations.

45:15Sam Sanders:You do also get that the Isabella character in this movie kind of likes the sex slave stuff.

45:20Sean Fennessey:Which I kind of enjoyed.

45:21Sam Sanders:I didn't mind either. You like the dog barking?

45:24Sean Fennessey:Well, I just think it was a good, to me, that was a clever twist because making Heathcliff so strapping and striking, you almost need to like, you need to literalize that in the movie. And the fact that Isabella can't control herself around him, that she's like, oh my God, I need this. I think makes the Catherine and Heathcliff experience a little bit more legible. and also Alison Oliver's just funny she's just fun to watch you know she has a presence that is amusing and cuts through a lot of that grimness that you were talking about let's talk about Elordi and Margot Robbie before we get into Pilly and Fully

45:56Sam Sanders:yeah

46:00Sean Fennessey:I think they're both miscast yes yeah I don't think their performances are bad but in the book

46:05Amanda Dobbins:she's like a dark haired teenager right

46:07Sean Fennessey:yeah Margot Robbie's 35 yeah and because they're teens

46:11Amanda Dobbins:in the book yeah

46:12Sean Fennessey:when the main action

46:13Amanda Dobbins:is happening

46:14Sean Fennessey:and I don't know what the exact age is when they start to, as they're getting a little bit older and she marries Linton, but presumably at this time in history, she's not marrying Linton at 32.

46:23Sam Sanders:No, no, no. It's younger. And then I think, yeah, I mean, I think it all wraps up before 30. I don't know. For me, it wasn't age necessarily, though I do think that younger people communicate an abandon and a sense of just -

46:41Sean Fennessey:That's really, yeah, that was what I was thinking.

46:43Sam Sanders:You know, irrational behavior. sorry to everyone in the booth uh for the most rational person here today is jack that would that would make more sense or explain just kind of like these these people are wilding um but i just thought it was more i i thought it was like decisions of how they're interpreting the characters and again like i really chafed on that like very competent bossy um i'm doing what i want version of of Kathy that the transition into like I just couldn't help myself was never really developed for me. I like I don't think Margot Robbie can like pull that off. And then a Lordy is doing Frankenstein for the first half, as we said.

47:31Sean Fennessey:Very monosyllabic, very physical. Yeah. lurching a lot.

47:35Sam Sanders:And he is definitely brooding and his, his size and just general heft is, is overwhelming and like maybe like a little threatening, but he's, I'd find his like bad boyness to be a different quality than what I would imagine a Heathcliff to be, which is, he's very, he's controlled. And there is something that is supposed to be uncontrolled about what all these people are doing. And these are two very controlled performances. And so the sex scenes also never reach that abandon that you're supposed to I don't know what they require.

48:20Amanda Dobbins:I keep thinking about the Laurence Olivier version of this movie, which I think was great. And yeah, he gets to kind of lose control and his rage and his revenge is just so much more fully embodied than Elordi could do. But that's half Elordi's fault. And half of the problem is like, you don't give him enough script to do any of that. His role is so minimized. But I think my biggest issue was with Margot Robbie, not because I hate Margot Robbie, but because I love her.

48:51Sam Sanders:Yeah.

48:52Amanda Dobbins:And whenever I see her on a screen, I'm just like, I want you to be a fun hero and I'm rooting for you. Yeah. I'm rooting for you. Yeah. And this is not the kind of movie She has like a Tom Hanks-y quality.

49:02Sean Fennessey:you can't play the villain and Catherine is kind of the villain of the story she's a hero

49:05Amanda Dobbins:like Margot Robbie at all times I want her to be like guiding me towards happiness

49:12Sam Sanders:is she the like I mean she is in the book but again like this movie casts her as someone who you know kind of gets thrown over by her you know paid friend her maid and then she gets pregnant and like dies slowly and and then with a big bleed out oh my god And then at the end, she's really sad because... And it's really sad because they were like friends as children.

49:38Sean Fennessey:The villain is way oversimplified. But I think one of the things that at least you see in the adaptations is that she is this representation of the failures of class. That she makes bad choices because the selfishness that is ingrained in her by her upbringing forces her away from her true passion and into a life that is like an imprisonment. and she never gets to truly express herself. And then she takes it out on Heathcliff and he feels worse and he seeks revenge on her because of that unwillingness to acknowledge their true love. That makes her kind of the aggressor in the story. And Margot Robbie, I totally agree with you.

50:13Sean Fennessey:Margot Robbie's just winning. Like she's just somebody that you just want to hang out with and you are rooting for her. She has a very classical Hollywood leading lady quality. It's giving a little Julia Roberts. Like I only want Julia Roberts to like end up happy. Yes. And when Julia Roberts did stuff like this, like Mary Riley, it never worked. She couldn't pull this stuff off. And it's hard to do. Catherine Earnshaw is a little bit more of like a romantic, you know, desirous figure than Mary Riley is, who's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde's maid. Okay. Fascinating movie. But I think that they're both a little bit wrong for it.

50:46Sean Fennessey:I don't think Heathcliff should be like 6 '9". I mean, Jacob Elordi is enormous. Yeah. He is. I know, you're very happy about that. Yeah, yeah. Also, we're going to talk about Pillion,

50:55Sam Sanders:and you're just going to talk about Alexander.

50:57Sean Fennessey:In that case, it works.

50:58Sam Sanders:Sure. But it's just like the size, you know, it's powerful. You know, these movies do understand that, at least. I agree. He was totally wrong for this part. But but it's also I remain a fan. Yeah.

51:10Amanda Dobbins:It's like I had two questions I asked myself leaving that movie. Well, first, the thought my first thought was great gowns, beautiful gowns.

51:17Sam Sanders:Yeah.

51:18Amanda Dobbins:And then second, it's like, you know, critically, do I enjoy this film? Probably not for the most part. But is this movie going to do what it needs to do for the studio and for Emerald Fennell? Probably, yeah. Oh, I think so, definitely. You've got Bargo Robbie in there. You've got Charlie XCX in there. The trailer is hot. Like, all of the pieces are hot right now. And that will be enough to get butts in seat for a good opening weekend, I think. And that is what matters to her future more than if I like this movie or not, which makes me sad. But, like, this movie will do fine.

51:52Sean Fennessey:I think it's going to do very well. which is good I think it's a great thing you know it's okay to not like a movie people going to movies is great period yes go to the theaters we love it

52:02Sam Sanders:I just didn't understand this movie you know I was honestly like what I really genuinely spoiler alert I guess for the end which is really just the halfway point of a book that was written almost 200 years ago that's been adapted 35 times that we know of counting wise yeah so the last shot where it's a flashback to them as kids. And they're like, I'll love you forever. Is that sincere?

52:29Amanda Dobbins:I think so. Is Emerald Fennell sincere?

52:33Sam Sanders:I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Honestly,

52:37Sean Fennessey:shout out to her though. Maybe that's interesting. This has been a way more interesting conversation about a movie than we've had in a few weeks for sure because she's definitely got something. You have to. She has something. And I honestly, I personally, as a movie podcast host,

52:51Amanda Dobbins:need directors who have something. I will say that. And I will say I had so much more fun listening to Emerald Fennell talk about her process on talking pictures than watching that movie. Yeah. Her mind is brilliant. I like the way that she approaches her work with like a vision and a point she's trying to make. I just don't think the point was made in this movie.

53:12Sam Sanders:I will say if this movie looked better, I would like it a lot more. Some of what I'm holding against it is really just that the promised visual sumptuousness versus whatever is happening, which you just have to get down to the like, we got to solve this as a nation.

53:29Amanda Dobbins:I think if this wasn't a big studio film, it would have been better. And I think that what I enjoyed about Pillian was that it was small, indie, and it set no expectations for me as a viewer. It was a book I hadn't read. I didn't know what it was going to be about. I just went in and said, okay, let's see it. Whereas this finale adaptation of Wuthering Heights has the expectation and burden of so much on it. Like, could she have made a better film if less of that was in the room with her?

54:02Sean Fennessey:I think it's ultimately in her perception of the story. And I think her perception of the story, and again, it is her right, is just not what Wuthering Heights is and kind of fundamentally is misunderstanding it. and it's okay to do that but it just seems like an odd decision and so I found myself like three quarters of the way through the movie thinking like what is she trying to say? Still don't know. Yeah. And I don't know and you know what? Some movies don't have to say anything. Some movies can just be Jurassic Park and they can just be like wow, holy fuck and I do think a lot of people will have that reaction to this movie.

54:35Sean Fennessey:They're gonna like it.

54:36Sam Sanders:I don't think Jurassic Park is saying that dinosaurs are amazing and wouldn't it be cool if we could see them again. And don't fuck with nature. I guess this movie is saying like wouldn't it be like is it saying that it would be cool to have sex with the person you want to have sex with I don't know it doesn't seem cool isn't that something we can all agree on

54:51Sean Fennessey:also

54:52Sam Sanders:but then the movie doesn't seem to agree with it

54:54Sean Fennessey:but it's like oh my god there's a bad romance I've never heard of that before that's not an idea you know it's a kind of movie

55:00Sam Sanders:I don't understand I don't I don't understand

55:03Amanda Dobbins:also Jurassic Park has a certain appreciation for what the majority of filmmakers enjoy and I think that Emerald Fennell in this version of Arthur and Haidt cares less about what the audience will actually enjoy and more about seeing her singular view of filmmaking through.

55:26Sean Fennessey:And God bless it. Which I do it. And when it comes to male filmmakers I will praise that all day long. You know what I mean? So I don't want to be a hypocrite. That's why I'm saying she's got something. She has a vision. Yes. I don't really get it but I really respect it. It's provocative and it gives people going.

55:41Sam Sanders:I mean it's true but it's like Like, you could, this is not dissimilar for Marie Antoinette, except I understood what Marie Antoinette was about. I understood the take that it was historically. I understood visually what it was trying to do. It does actually look good. And the songs and the modern songs and the anachronisms are actually matched to what's going on in the film. So some of it, it's not a lack of vision. It's just a lack of execution.

56:08Amanda Dobbins:I need both of you to talk to her.

56:09Sam Sanders:But I do also don't understand the vision, so.

56:12Sean Fennessey:Will y 'all interview her? I want you to. I talked to her for Promising Young Woman with Carey Mulligan. Okay. And it was an interesting conversation, but anytime there's a star present, you know, it's a different kind of a conversation. It's a little harder to drill deep. But I would, I don't know. Oh, no, not again.

56:25Amanda Dobbins:What was that?

56:26Sean Fennessey:Wow, we need a real solve on that. Emeril Fennell did that. That's the second time in two episodes that's happened. I just want someone to ask her and get like a straight answer.

56:37Amanda Dobbins:Like, what is the North Star of your work? what is your mission statement of your work and how do you execute it I'm just interested I'm not I might be revealing

56:46Sean Fennessey:too much for her you know that might be there's something going on yeah

56:48Sam Sanders:do you think could most filmmakers answer that

56:52Sean Fennessey:I'd love for me to coherently

56:53Sam Sanders:and also I think many could

56:55Sean Fennessey:but would not

56:55Sam Sanders:many could and would not and the ones who could I become wary because then they're more interested in what that's a corporate answer right you know like what are we putting on the deck

57:04Sean Fennessey:yeah

57:05Sam Sanders:it's not

57:06Sean Fennessey:I have to say this I said this a bit during Salt Burn and I circled back to it immediately after we watched the movie a few weeks ago. We know that Emerald Fennell is interested in low-born figures attempting to break the structure of power through revenge, sex, or death. And these three ideas are intertwined in all three of her films. I am very curious about this obsession given her own class status. I do not... What is her class status? Not poor. Okay. She comes from a somewhat wealthy background. Okay. And I'm not pocket-watching. I'm just... This is another movie where the lowborn person is like more devilish than they need to be in the story and more a sower of chaos than they need to be.

57:49Sean Fennessey:And I don't really get what that is. And that is now persistent. It is now consistent. Okay. And she's making films about class. Yeah. But is she like these people who have less than me are trying to kill me? Like I'm a little worried that that's what she's trying to say. Because Catherine does die. Yeah. And we kind of feel like we have to blame Heathcliff for her death. Yeah. And that's what Saul Byrne is. Yeah. Yeah.

58:14Sam Sanders:I'm honestly now trying to. This makes sense to me. I'm on Wikipedia trying to parse her like early life and education sections and then her parents and like trace it back.

58:24Sean Fennessey:Her father's a well-known jeweler in England. Sure.

58:26Sam Sanders:But that is, you know, and then she went to Marlboro, which is also where Kate Middleton went. Her father went to Eaton. So they are people who are like very in the classmates. But like England class system and titles and money. It's different than ours. It's like, so I don't know. I'm not excusing anything. Or I'm just wondering if she sees herself or has felt herself as the outsider in these places. That may be true. Which I don't know.

58:54Sean Fennessey:We see Barry Keegan's middle class existence in Saltburn. And we see Heathcliff, a street urchin, taken in by a wealthier family. That is not how she grew up.

59:05Sam Sanders:I do also think she's like good family friends with Andrew Lloyd Webber. Right. She was cast to play Camilla Parker Bowles on The Crown. To me, I'm not really accusing her of anything.

59:14Sean Fennessey:I'm just kind of like, why do you keep coming back to this? It's now a trend. So why is it? And that is a question I would ask. That is the thing I would be curious about. Get on this show. Because if it's what I'm afraid it is, it's very bad. Like that's not a good perspective from which to write that like the lower class is trying to kill you. That's something that like terrible people in the world communicate all the time in our terrible country. So I don't know. It keeps churning inside hearing that.

59:38Amanda Dobbins:My biggest question, and I never expect or want any filmmaker to make films that are like a false racial diversity cornucopia. But if she is thematically dealing with class in all of her work, you cannot have an actual conversation about class that is complete without it being complicated by race. and I think that I think that I would be getting more brave film from her if she tried to tackle that yeah I get it she's from her place from her lane but I'll say this till the cows come home it's okay for singular writers to write with other people it's okay to collaborate and say how can I expand my worldview and my vision to speak to this better?

1:00:34Amanda Dobbins:I wish Mike White would have done that with the White Lotus. I just think that we're in this moment of singular creatives that drive their vision all the way through. But I will always want a work that is tempered by a writer's room and good editors.

1:00:50Sean Fennessey:Not the soapbox. In order to do that, you've got to have some quieting of the ego, right? because a lot of these people are driven and one of the reasons they're so successful is because they're like, my vision, my vision. And then you also, I think, have to have trust between partners to do that well. Yes. And that's really unusual to find that, to find a diverse partnership between two people who can bring both. I'm not saying it happens a lot. This is one of the things I love about the show Industry is that that's a show between two guys who are similar, but have come from different backgrounds.

1:01:21Sean Fennessey:But you can see that they're kind of like smashing up against each other at times and the way that they're portraying different characters who are not all white in that world, which I love about that show. You don't see that very often. You don't see that. But anyway, this is an interesting movie. It's going to make a lot of money. It could have been a Netflix movie and shout out to the people who, especially Emerald Fennell, who decided not to make it a Netflix movie and make it a Warner Brothers film. I think it's better for it. I think it's better on the big screen. I think this would be a tough sit as a streaming movie.

1:01:50Sean Fennessey:I'm glad it's not that. I'm sure next week we'll talk a bit about the box office reception and how big it can get. It is Valentine's Day after all. At least 20 million. Oh, I think it's like 40 million, maybe 50 million. I think it's going to do really well.

1:02:05Amanda Dobbins:And for that alone, thank you, Emerald. Butts in seats is always good.

1:02:10Sean Fennessey:Yeah, speaking of butts in seats, Pillian. Did I say her last name wrong? Sorry. Fennell? Fennell? I think it's Fennell, but I don't know. But it doesn't matter. I'm sorry, Emerald. I don't think she's good. If she's listening, this is a tough sit.

1:02:22Sam Sanders:But also call us. Let us, we'd like, I'd be happy to talk. I need y 'all to grill her. Genuine questions.

1:02:27Amanda Dobbins:I need y 'all to grill her. Like I just, yeah, yeah. I also, I always want a thesis statement from a creative. I like it. I know it's corporate, but I'm like, what are you about? Give me an, I love an elevator pitch.

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1:04:54Sean Fennessey:Pillion is written and directed by Harry Layton. It's adapted from a novel that I've not read. I looked at, but I've not read called Box Hill by Adam Mars Jones. I did as much homework as I could for this episode. It stars Harry Milling and Alexander Skarsgård. This is a smaller film than Wuthering Heights, so I'm going to give a little recap of what this story is. Colin, a timid man, meets Ray, a confident biker gang leader who initiates him into a submissive relationship, challenging Colin's mundane existence and prompting personal growth through their unconventional dynamic. What did you think of this, Sam?

1:05:26Sean Fennessey:I love this movie so much.

1:05:28Amanda Dobbins:I saw it as God intended at The Grove. Me too. Before The Cheesecake Factory. Oh, I didn't get that. With my boyfriend. Oh, beautiful. And it was just, it's, I like that this movie doesn't waste a single second. It is wonderfully paced. The script is sparse in just the right ways. And unlike Wuthering Heights, this film lands the plane. It is not a happy ending, but it is an ending that feels fulfilling. I love this movie. I loved it.

1:06:04Sean Fennessey:I really don't have too many notes. I feel relief because it was one of my favorite movies of last year, even though it's technically a movie of this year. What did you think, Amanda?

1:06:12Sam Sanders:Same. I mean, it's funny to say about a dom-com with politics and ideas that have not historically been explored in cinema. But I found this very old school in the best way. Totally. It was just very familiar. As Sam said, it is, I don't want to say small, but it is specific. And you are following a group of characters who the filmmaker totally understands. The world is fully realized. And like familiar beats, if not of plot, then of emotion. And someone trying to figure out what they want in the world and figure out what they want from someone else. And then some unusual situations, some funny, some sad.

1:07:04Sam Sanders:and then we move on. Bigger, you know, full of our lessons and happy for what's happened. It was great. It is a classic romantic comedy. Yeah, it is. But also,

1:07:16Amanda Dobbins:it's like, what I love about it is it hits those classic beats and yet every expression of the beat is a thing I haven't seen in this kind of film before. The first scene in which these two people come together sexually is in an alley. And he's pulling out his dick and it has a cock ring in it. Like, it's pierced. It's true. And it's like, that's where we start. Yes. And so to see the rom-com beats be hit in this queer, some call it nasty, like visceral world, I thought that was really hard to pull off and I did it very well.

1:07:50Sam Sanders:It is also really hard to incorporate consummation, sex, in a romantic comedy and still keep the film and the tension going. Because that is so much, like, the tension of a romantic comedy is like, are they going to get together? But like, are they going to have sex? And you think about it, most romantic comedies, maybe they have sex once and then it was like an accident or like, oh no, you know, some sort of miscommunication. communication, but sexual tension is an essential part of most of these structures.

1:08:23Sean Fennessey:So that to me is the ingeniousness of this movie is that that thing is what you come to expect from a movie like this. And this has the same structure. It's just that this kind of like fights and quibbling and will they, won't they is expressed more in their sexual encounters. Yes. The wrestling sequence between them, the orgy, their first missionary sex position. Even the first time that he bought us.

1:08:43Amanda Dobbins:And they talk about how painful it is. Yes.

1:08:44Sean Fennessey:all of those things, those are the moments when you expect the two movie stars to be like, I hate you. I hate you more, you know, but it actually is expressed physically between them and you've seen, like, the way that Colin's story is told is really interesting to me because he has found something that he desperately wants, right? He's this lonely kid in Bromley who's in this really square family and they're singing barbershop quartet music at Christmas time and he is, like, unseen and unloved and, you know, a gay kid who just doesn't have any love in his life. And he finds...

1:09:19Sam Sanders:He's a parking monitor.

1:09:20Sean Fennessey:Yes, yes, exactly.

1:09:21Sam Sanders:Which I, every time I've parked since then, it's an incredible detail in those... Yes, and those guys are either

1:09:27Sean Fennessey:the most ignored people on Earth or the most hated people on Earth. Yep.

1:09:30Sam Sanders:Which you see the great scene of someone being like, have you no shade? Yes.

1:09:34Sean Fennessey:Which is a great stroke. And this incredible idea of like, what would you do if you're ripped from the pinup calendar idea of perfection was presented before you and actually took you on and enslaved you in a way, you know, like made you the submissive in a relationship. And how much would you like it? What would be the ways in which you would like it? And then what would be too far or wrong? And when would you break and what would cause you to break? And the movie has really interesting notions of like kind of what causes someone to become uncomfortable in this kind of arrangement. But that doesn't mean that that means the arrangement is not right for the person.

1:10:10Sean Fennessey:So I found there's like an amazing amount of nuance and Colin and what he's interested in.

1:10:13Amanda Dobbins:And I think that they were able to get to this nuance because the whole time, in spite of this Dom-sub relationship that is very much about control and power, it's also always consensual. Skarsgård's character is never making him stay. He always chooses to do it. He chooses to be the sub. And that is actually quite different from the book. I think in the book, the first sex scene is tantamount to rape. So to make that choice, it helps this film remain lovable the whole time. Yes. Because it's only, it is consent focused.

1:10:47Sean Fennessey:We should talk about Harry Melling and Alexander Skarsgård. Harry Melling, you know, I think best known from Harry Potter. Harry Lytton said he saw him in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. I don't know if you guys remember that from that movie, that Coen Brothers movie, which is an omnibus story. And he plays a carnival performer who has no appendages. And he is reading a poem over and over again. And that is sort of what, he's like a freak show.

1:11:07Amanda Dobbins:Oh my God.

1:11:08Sean Fennessey:But he's amazing in the film. And so he cast him out of that. And he is kind of mesmerizing in this movie, even though he has to be so internalized. And you're kind of like desperate for him to enunciate how he feels or what's going on. But he, it's such a performance in the face that I really, really enjoy. And Alexander Skarsgård, by the same token, who's on a bit of a run right now. That man is doing the work.

1:11:34Amanda Dobbins:Always on a run in my house. I came out of that film, I was already impressed with him. I think that he was the best part of season one of Big Little Lies. Yeah. Yes. But after seeing this, I'm like, oh, you might be on your way to being one of the greats. Yeah. He's got it. And he chooses well.

1:11:50Sean Fennessey:He has great taste. He had a really rocky story. Remember he was Tarzan? And he's been in some odd studio movies. I think I blocked that one out. But he has really, like, in the last five or ten years, Harry said that, you know, it was really the last season, season four of Succession that got him really interested in how he could express power on screen. I know there are some ways in which you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:12:10Sam Sanders:I also recommend Park Chan-wook's Little Drummer Girl, which is a miniseries adaptation if you haven't seen it. It's really good and he's in it. All right.

1:12:18Sean Fennessey:I'll watch. What did you think of Skarsgård?

1:12:21Sam Sanders:I get it. You know, I understood going in. And there is, I think, something both to the casting, but the filmmaking, it relies on the audience also being completely understanding why Colin would not just want to be in this type of relationship, but why this person has such a like appeal to him. You have to be able, even if like, even if you're kind of going back on the fourth on what you want for Colin, like you understand why he is in this relationship and not just because he's learning stuff about himself, also because that guy's a real dreamboat. And then I think the flip at the, when they, you know, they take a day off.

1:13:06Sam Sanders:How about that? And we don't have to say anymore. And it's so beautiful. And also what Skarsgård does in that moment. And then how Melling responds to him and is, I think, like a real gift. Like their abilities to change their relationship is pretty, it's amazing. But kind of tragically.

1:13:28Sean Fennessey:Yeah. You know, the impossibility of that level of happiness is also when we talk about like yearning and what people really want and what I think Emerald Fennell is thinking about and what that novel is about as opposed to this.

1:13:39Amanda Dobbins:Yeah.

1:13:40Sean Fennessey:Which I think really literalizes it in such a cool way in the final act of this movie that just like left me feeling that like happy sad. Yes.

1:13:49Amanda Dobbins:And I think what we're feeling happy-sad about and the difference between Pillion and Wuthering Heights is that the protagonist in Pillion, by the end of the film, exhibits a great deal of personal growth. Yes. He grows through this experience. And he becomes someone who knows more about what he wants and about how to get it. Yes. He is wiser because of it. He's not defeated by the relationship. Yes. Every character in Wuthering Heights, compared to that, feels static. Who is growing? who was becoming a different person. And they pull off that growth beautifully and it makes me love it more. I love it.

1:14:25Amanda Dobbins:It was very interesting watching it as a homosexual with my partner in the theater full of homosexuals. And I think that the poignancy of the way that this film is expressed is that it speaks to a truth for a lot of gay men. Like sometimes the partner that teaches you the most, you never see them again and you never know their name. Sometimes the act of learning how to like love yourself and your sexuality and be fully embodied, it means interacting with people on an extremely temporary basis. And this movie got that, but didn't make it sad. It said, oh, that's just the process. And you're okay.

1:15:07Amanda Dobbins:You're okay. I love that.

1:15:09Sean Fennessey:It's a great idea for, it's not often expressed. Like, and the movie is not - This is a very kind movie. It is. Despite having such severity and such physical intensity. Yes. Because the moral of the story is the growth happens

1:15:26Amanda Dobbins:whether the love that you want stays or leaves. You grew. You grew. I don't know. I find that somewhat more romantic than what it is.

1:15:34Sam Sanders:There's also something about, there's one of the sex scenes starts with wrestling. You know, there's like. Which not my kink.

1:15:41Amanda Dobbins:God bless it. Not my kink.

1:15:43Sam Sanders:I thought that was like very funny. And it is almost played a little bit. Wonderfully choreographed. And shot and is played. If it's not silly, it's just there's a lightness to it.

1:15:54Amanda Dobbins:Yes.

1:15:54Sam Sanders:And they are like wrestling each other. And I thought that there was something about the way that this this movie and also these relationships kind of literalize or physicalize the like the danger or the friction. The friction is explicit. Exactly. So that so that there is room for kindness like in other places. was, I thought, very lovely. I was very charmed by it.

1:16:19Amanda Dobbins:Yeah, well, and like what you get when you have this set up, when you have these lovers be in a dom-sub relationship, they're both acknowledging from the very start that the friction is the point. And the friction is the pleasure. The friction is the growth. The friction is the love. And so that felt so much more understandable to me because the dom-sub makes it explicit. it the friction the friction in in wuthering heights yeah felt less focused yeah it felt like this film just it was clearer i think it was clear i think if it were made a little

1:16:55Sean Fennessey:differently though it might have felt a little bit more anthropological about a dom sub relationship and you get a little bit of that because colin is going through this for the first time yeah so there was some sort of like rules of engagement that is happening but a lot of one of the things that i really thought was smart about it was and i don't know if this is in the novel or not but the way in which Colin's family reacts to their happiness for his relationship and then their confusion and in his mother's case, like kind of revulsion and frustration with Ray when she finally meets him.

1:17:23Amanda Dobbins:Yeah.

1:17:25Sean Fennessey:Felt not like a movie made in 1972, you know, where it was just like, oh, my gay son. Yeah. I'm so ashamed. Yeah. Yeah. Conversion therapy. How can this possibly happening? He's been expelled from the family. It was sort of like that was an inclusive, loving family, but also there was a step beyond that they couldn't get comfortable with. And it felt actually more like lots of relationships you see in any family, which is like your boyfriend sucks and we're not happy about him and you should break up with him, which is very universal. Yeah. You know, like, and it doesn't really matter what the nature of that relationship is.

1:17:56Sean Fennessey:It's just like, this guy's not nice to you and that matters, but your parents can never really understand your psychology in a relationship and they'll never really try. Yeah. So there's something, I thought that that was very subtle and interesting the way that all that was portrayed.

1:18:10Amanda Dobbins:Well, and Skarsgård's character, Ray, he kind of pushes back on the mother character. And he's like, the fact that you even want your child to have a relationship that pleases you, that's the problem. Yes. And I'm like, this film felt so affirming having not seen gay films get these beats right. Yeah. I think there's so many queer films, queer romances that try and then fail to get at the small bits of nuance that Pillion gets right. And it's remarkable that it gets these small bits of nuance right in a plot that is like big and dom-sub. Like, threading that needle is pretty remarkable.

1:18:57Sam Sanders:And also like another like not totally happy, like queer love story ending in the sense that it's not, you know. Yeah. I don't want to spoil it. Yeah. Yeah. But it's not. You worry. It's not a fairy tale. Exactly. It's not a fairy tale. And you even worry for like the first couple of minutes of like, oh, no, is this another one where it's just like the sad, lonely gay kid? And it's not it's not going to turn out. And it handles it with such good. Yeah.

1:19:21Amanda Dobbins:Like he does like this is a romance where by the end of it, you realize that the protagonist has come out of it loving himself more. Sign me up. Yeah. I can't stop. Can we talk about penises for a minute?

1:19:35Sam Sanders:Sure.

1:19:36Amanda Dobbins:Was it his?

1:19:38Sam Sanders:I assumed not. But I thought that the editing, the cutting was more about that. There was like a very specific. There's only so much that you can see. And you see the piercing. Yes. That's what they want you to see. Right. But before they avoid an X rating. But I just, you know, because I said I mentioned I watched Heated Rivalry to catch up with just how we're doing sex on screens right now. And also like a lot of gay sex, but, you know, no full frontal. And no real friction.

1:20:06Amanda Dobbins:Like compare the scenes of the first bottoming scene in Pillian to the first bottoming scene in Heated Rivalry. In Pillian, he's like, that hurt. Right. In Heated Rivalry, he's great at it the first time. now come on now I'm sorry it's fantasy I don't

1:20:26Sam Sanders:I don't understand why we can't have a little more penis that's just kind of where I am with it and especially in this one especially when you know the camping scene and I noticed the cutting and I I think it's a ratings issue I think that we need to we need to broaden the horizon but like we're all grown ups

1:20:49Amanda Dobbins:I want to wear butts because you see Skarsgård's butt for a little bit.

1:20:52Sean Fennessey:And I'm like, stay there. Stay there. It is in many ways, I think, the last taboo. I think full frontal generally, but explicitly dicks. Yeah. There is something, you know, it's very obvious what it is. Most of the people who are in power, the ways and means of taste in our society are straight guys or closeted guys who are afraid of dicks. Like that's really what it boils down to. And they don't want them presented as normal as the way the breasts are presented in our culture. And that's just how it is. And it's not changing. And it's been that way since 1980. And it's going to stay that way probably as long as things keep going the way that they're going.

1:21:29It is interesting in the era of Game of Thrones, for example, there was a very famous moment

1:21:35Sean Fennessey:or already infamous moment on A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, the new Game of Thrones show this season, where a knight exits his hut and pulls out his dick and starts pissing. and it's just full-blown, full frontal and the guy's got a freaking hog on him. It is like a mind-blowing and it's clearly prosthetic. But it's like played for laughs. It's not a sex scene. Right, well, we were talking about this

1:21:56Sam Sanders:and you brought up Boogie Nights, which did it, but that is like the conclusion of the film and is a prosthetic and is also like in repose.

1:22:05Amanda Dobbins:Yes. But heated rivalry is very horny and sexy and arouses you without showing dick.

1:22:13Sam Sanders:it's true

1:22:14Amanda Dobbins:the thrusting does the work it can be done the butt shots do the work it can be done you know

1:22:17Sam Sanders:and it's like cutting just so it can like the shower scene the best part of that show is how they edit the sex

1:22:23Sean Fennessey:you know I'm really glad that I saw In the Realm of the Senses yesterday because it does kind of confront you with like careful what you wish for because part of the the meat of that story is this woman's obsession her physical obsession and this man's physical obsession with each other and they just want to be fucking all the time. And they're just long stretches of the movie in which the woman is just fondling this guy's dick. She is obsessed by it. She is consumed by it. We've all been there. His thing. And it is like, it is confrontational. And it's so rare to see a movie linger on an erect dick.

1:23:03Sean Fennessey:Like you just, you just don't see it if you don't watch pornography. Amanda has never seen any pornography, which is an ongoing exploration on this show. So, you know, To try to map something like that from that movie, I don't think that would appear on Heated Rivalry. That's like a streaming show, but in a movie like Pillian where you're like, we see Alexander Skarsgård in nude erect for four minutes would be like stunning. It's unimaginable.

1:23:28Amanda Dobbins:Here's the thing, and I'm glad you brought up porn. I'm glad you brought up porn because we all live in this world where we can see as much porn as we want whenever we want. and I'm guessing a bunch of the homosexual men that have gone to go see Pillion also watch a bunch of porn. Knowing that, I don't need the dick there. I'm going to see dick on my phone if I want. No, it's true. You can do that, sure.

1:23:56Sam Sanders:I did, there was something about Pillion and specifically that camping scene where I was like, I can feel the cut. For sure. Like I can feel that, you know, I can feel. They've talked about it. Yeah. And in that moment, I was like, I wish that we could go there. And I agree.

1:24:11Amanda Dobbins:Did it still work for you, though, as a scene?

1:24:13Sam Sanders:Yeah, it totally still worked. But I was like, I think it's silly. Like, I think that it's not silly on their fault. They cut it in order to get the ratings so that more people could see the movie. I understand that. But I'm like, we're all grownups. Like, this movie is about what it's about. Yeah. Like, I could see it. I agree with you that on Heated Rivalry, you got to meet people where they are. there's like a that's that's a streaming show that a lot of moms are watching and you don't want to be like or you know moms and daughters which anyway yeah i it would be too much but i just i did note that there's no there's just no penis anywhere yeah alexander skarsgård yeah

1:24:51Amanda Dobbins:pull it out sam this has been great thank you very much i'm i'm honored to have been here i was so nervous i was like i gotta watch a bunch of movies and study because y 'all are pros but this was wonderful and I'm so glad that we got to talk about Pillion because I love that movie and I think everyone should watch it. Where can we find you? I host a radio show YouTube show and podcast called The Sam Sanders Show. It is about entertainment writ large so we talk a lot about movies music, TV books, etc. And we drop two episodes a week that you can find wherever you find those kind of things My latest Just really, really fun, fun chat.

1:25:31Amanda Dobbins:I got to talk to Nia DaCosta recently. And hearing her talk about the way she approaches the work of being a director was fascinating because she knows that it's like half creative or even less than half creative. And the bulk of it is managerial. You're running a business. And she talked at length about what it was like to work for Marvel. She even used of her own volition, the F word flop and talked about it. So I would say for fans of this podcast, you'll love that chat. But we have all kinds of things in there, all kinds of fun episodes every week about fun shit. And I have these guys on there a lot.

1:26:08Sean Fennessey:Okay, let's go to my conversation now with Harry Lighton.

1:26:15Sean Fennessey:Very happy to have Harry Lighton here. Thank you for being here. I always like talking to first-time filmmakers, debut feature filmmakers. This is your debut feature film.

1:26:23Amanda Dobbins:Very much is, yeah.

1:26:25Sean Fennessey:I like to start by asking debut feature filmmakers, Do you remember the movie that you saw that made you want to be a movie maker?

1:26:34Amanda Dobbins:Yes, I do. I wasn't really remotely interested in becoming a filmmaker until I was like 19. And up until that point, my favorite film had been like Kung Fu Panda. I was obsessed with Kung Fu Panda. I could like recite the whole thing off by heart. And it's a great film, but, you know, I didn't want to become an animator. And then I stayed with a mate of mine when I moved to London to start work when I was 19, stayed with a mate. He was really into films and he showed me the lives of others. And I think it might well have been like the first film I ever watched, which wasn't in the English language.

1:27:09Amanda Dobbins:But it also just had a sort of impact on me where I was like intrigued by the design, both the sort of narrative design, but also the aesthetics of it. And from then I kind of got more and more stuck in.

1:27:22Sean Fennessey:so what did you do how did you then decide to go forward towards that i i'm i'm quite i'm quite an

1:27:30Amanda Dobbins:obsessive guy so like i uh i then was like okay i'm gonna watch two films a day every day for a year and try and you know work my way through film history a little bit and i did that and by doing that kind of narrowed in on um on i guess broadly a style which i liked which has obviously changed massively now but um but then practically i like i think it took me a couple of years to kind of get the confidence up to actually go and try and make something myself and the first thing i made was a was a commercial for a university theater company they were doing a play called arcadia by tom stoppard and i made a little 30 second commercial for it which was about a like a tortoise walking to the theater and um and it was it was all right and i really like loved sounds terrible but it was all right and I I like loved the experience of making it and after that was like well I could maybe graduate to working with humans and um hadn't since then you know it was the classic make a few shorts and that's how I've come into it did

1:28:33Sean Fennessey:were you kind of like hunting for the right material to make a feature how did the story cross your path? I was sort of, so I made a bunch of my shorts had been, I guess, about like sexual

1:28:47Amanda Dobbins:transgression. And it's a topic I'd always been quite interested in. But I had spent five years writing a feature film with the same people, the same producers at Element and the same execs at the BBC, but it was set in Tokyo in the world of sumo wrestling. And then the pandemic happened and it became unfeasible to to make that and so I was kind of at a loss and one of the execs woman called Eva Yates from the BBC she sent me the book Box Hill which Pillian's based on and and she said I think you'll I think you'll like it because she knew that I've been looking for something roughly in that area and and so it kind of landed at the right time when I was despairing and I was like okay thank thank god I can now again make my kinky film after all.

1:29:33Sean Fennessey:Will you return to the sumo wrestling film?

1:29:36Amanda Dobbins:It's a question. I re-read the script for the first time in a long time, two weeks ago, and I had thought that there was too much crossover between Pillion and it's called Stable, but actually I was pleasantly surprised by how different they were. So maybe.

1:29:51Sean Fennessey:Interesting. So I took a look at the story that it's based on and I didn't finish it, but I did notice that it's in first person. And that's very hard historically to translate movies from first person novels. And I'm kind of curious how you thought about that when you were adapting it and thinking about how we should understand Colin.

1:30:15Amanda Dobbins:It was the big question for me was like, because it's both first person, but also this like very complex tone in the book where it moves from sentence to sentence between humor and sincerity, that's all done through that first-person narration. And I remember when I spoke to the novelist, he was talking about films which have a lot of voiceover in them, referencing Terrence Malick particularly. And I watched Badlands. I'd seen it before, but I rewatched it and I thought that was an interesting example of a film which has sort of dissonance between between the voiceover which narrates it like it's this sort of teen movie and then the action which is kind of traumatizing and um interesting movie

1:31:01Sean Fennessey:about the power dynamic that's not dissimilar from the one in your film too yeah i think it's it's

1:31:06Amanda Dobbins:you know definitely was a kind of touch point when we were making pillion for me at least um but i knew i didn't want to use voiceover so then it all became about okay how can we how can we find equivalent images for that tone? And I think because the novel relies so heavily on first-person narration and also retrospective narration, that's partly why the film is so different from the novel was we had to discover a new form and a new time period and all these different things which would support visual storytelling rather than verbal.

1:31:46Sean Fennessey:so leather movies and biker movies are actually i think secretly crucial to movie history um there's obviously like many examples the wild one the corman biker movies scorpio rising girl on a motorcycle um i was trying to think i'm cruising like and a lot of intersections with some of the work that you do but i don't this movie doesn't really feel like any of those movies I wasn't sure since the book was handed to you, like, were any of those touch points for you? Did you look at them before you made this?

1:32:19Amanda Dobbins:I actually like deliberately avoided it. I hadn't, I hadn't really watched any of them before I was sent the book. And, um, and what I did know was that I wanted it to be a contemporary biker movie and I wanted to like update the, the kind of iconography of the sexual, the sort of hot biker. And so I like watch the wild ones. And then was I actually, you know, I love these movies and I feel like I could love them too much where it becomes overly referential. So I then steered very widely away. But funnily enough, you know, I still hadn't seen Scorpio Rising until we started doing press for the film.

1:33:00Amanda Dobbins:And then someone in an interview was like, I loved the reference to Scorpio Rising when, you know, the opening needle drop in our film is it's Betty Curtis. I will follow him and that's the kind of little Peggy March version of that is in Scorpio Rising so it's funny how these these moments of crossover happen even in spite of your intentions

1:33:21Sean Fennessey:yeah that's really funny I the very first day of my very first film class they showed us Scorpio Rising as a kind of like I think a way to kind of like unnerve your expectations of what film school might be like you know like that like avant-garde is going to be a part of the conversation that we're going to have here. But it's interesting the way that like that world, that milieu, like kind of despite it evolving over time, like still holds up cinematically too. So when you say you wanted to create like a new iconography, what do you mean by that?

1:33:48Amanda Dobbins:I mean that I think that there's just, you know, whether it is in film or in like literature, there's such a sort of standardized image of the sexy biker in queer culture where it's steeped in like Scorpio rising and Tom of Finland and it's a retro leveler. And it just seemed like that, you know, if you look at kinks in 2025, a lot of the kind of clothing which is fetishized now has more of a foot in urban wear, street wear and racing culture. So I was like, well, wouldn't it be fun if the levers which Ray wears feel like something new rather than like he is a kind of pastiche of Tom of Finland.

1:34:40Amanda Dobbins:I think it'd be very easy to make Alexander Skarsgård look like a Tom of Finland character, but I wanted to do something else with him. So he gave him these suits which have like hardware on the knees and go faster paneling on the back. And yeah, I think it makes for something which sits outside of that biker tradition.

1:35:01Sean Fennessey:I don't know very much about England. And so I was wondering if you could tell me why is this set in Bromley? Was the novel set in Bromley? What is the character of that space?

1:35:11Amanda Dobbins:The novel's called Box Hill, actually, which is a place. Box Hill's a famous biker site in Surrey. but um but actually for practical reasons largely it's very expensive on a low budget feature to shoot outside of London because you have to put up all your cast and crew you know put them up overnight and so we knew that we needed the place we shot to be within a certain distance of central London and um and I also knew that I wanted it to have like that slightly suburban flavor of places on the outskirts of London where they've been a bit forgotten about because I thought that would speak to Colin as someone who exists on the margins of culture.

1:35:55Amanda Dobbins:He's not someone who's like, if you don't know London, this might not mean anything to you, but Central London and East London, if you're gay, it's like you go to Soho, you go to Hackney and there's such a thriving, diverse, queer life there. Whereas Colin seems like someone who's never really been witness to that. So I wanted him to be in a kind of forgotten town. And then we were like scouting locations and I went to Bromley and it just had this amazing combination of like a slightly sort of uncared for high street. And then next to that, a very like idyllic, romantic green space, a park. And I knew that we needed, we needed both for the film, you know, particularly in that day off where they go, this is later in the film and it's a bit of a spoiler.

1:36:42Amanda Dobbins:So I don't know what your spoiler thing is. We don't have to go too far. But anyway, we needed the location to be able to hold two different emotional weights, one being kind of drab and the other one being elevated and gorgeous and Bromley could do that.

1:36:57Sean Fennessey:So casting Harry and Alexander, I feel like is kind of everything in the movie. And if they're not right, the movie is not going to work. So how do you cast individually and then make sure that they work together for the piece?

1:37:11Amanda Dobbins:Well, I think that a fair amount of it is just like a wing and a prayer when it comes to hoping that they work. I don't do chemistry readings. That's my idea of hell is like putting two actors in a room and being like, okay, now I have chemistry. I think it's very unfair on an actor as well. First dates can be rubbish. But I think very long and hard about who I'm going to cast. And in this case, I thought that Colin was a very difficult person to find because he's sort of the opposite of a leading man in many ways. He's supposed to be kind of forgettable and passive and he's rarely showing much agency in the scenes.

1:37:52Amanda Dobbins:And yet he needs to be the person who holds the camera at all times in the film. So he needs to be magnetic. And I was at a bit of a loss as to who could do that. And then my casting director sent me the Ballot of the Buster Scruggs, which Harry's in, and he's playing someone in a traveling performance troupe and he's got no arms and legs and he's a beta male character, but he was totally captivating and very moving, even though he was just reading the same poem again and again. It's a great performance. Yeah, it's great. And I then fell in love with his performances across a wide variety of them.

1:38:28Amanda Dobbins:I thought he had this totally unique flavor to him where he is. he's like uh you know he's very magnetic but not in a way which you associate with like male leading men um so i wanted him and and we got him unfortunately he said yes very quickly and then it was you know thinking about who would be a good partner for him and i just had happened to be watching succession at the time succession season four and uh i just thought alexander was so great in that. I'd seen him in lots of stuff before and thought it was brilliant, but in Succession particularly, he came onto a cast where all those other actors were just smashing it.

1:39:11Amanda Dobbins:No one shut up about the fact that Succession had the best cast in all time on TV. And then he was just sort of psychologically dominating all of those characters and doing so in a way which sometimes played into his physicality and then sometimes didn't. And I knew that's what I wanted for Ray. I wanted someone who was a head-turning beauty, but also could psychologically control situations and also be mischievous. And if you have ever seen an interview of Alex, he's quite mischievous. It's sort of the first thing you notice about him. So I thought, let's give it a, let's roll the dice. I thought it was very unlikely he'd come on board to be honest, but he then got back within 24 hours saying let's have a Zoom and we chatted and he came on after that.

1:40:02Sean Fennessey:I hear filmmakers say that sometimes where you're like, yeah, I'm meeting an actor, they've read my script and I'm trying to, I want to see if they want to get involved. Like what is a conversation like that actually like? Like what are you talking about? Are you talking about the character? Are you just talking about who you are and what you believe in or what you like, what your taste is? What does that conversation consist of?

1:40:20Amanda Dobbins:It's sort of both, I think. Definitely, it's funny. We were speaking about this last night and Alexander was like, I remember you were wearing a cuddly jumper with penguins on. And clearly I decided that I needed to try and show him that I wasn't just some terrifying kinky man. Both can exist in one person. I remember we spoke for like 20 minutes about us and football, like all sort of knee-jerk reactions go to football. And then we did speak about the character, not in a very specific way, but more in terms of the intentions of what I wanted to do with both the character and the film, how I was going to cast around the actors, is how I was going to make sure that the film felt like it had a lot of research and authenticity behind it rather than it feeling like a tourist approach to the world of kink.

1:41:23Amanda Dobbins:And yeah, it was, I guess, more that kind of thing.

1:41:27Sean Fennessey:How do you... The movie amazingly resists falling into the traps of there being a camp aspect to it or mocking the culture in any way. And even if some people come to it with sincerity, it still is sometimes hard to portray it in a way that can be fun and funny, but is also that deeply sincere mixture that you talked about in the novel. So how do you do that? The magic trick of tone, I guess, is the question.

1:41:55Amanda Dobbins:I think it's sort of threading a needle a little bit. And I knew that whenever it was always the question I was asked by like financiers was, oh, you know, what's the tone of this? Because it feels like it sits between a bunch of different things. And so my approach to that was when we were shooting to sort of collect different options to play one scene in a more broadly comedic fashion and then get the actors to do a more sincere take and because often you know you can shoot a scene and get like an amazing version of that scene but then when you're in the edit and you're trying to compile the whole it won't sit right and you know you actually need something which is less emotionally weighty and uh did you know that from doing the shorts i knew that partly uh no i think like i think because i didn't go to film school I sort of have just spent a lot of time reading other directors chat about what they do and I'd read an interview with Sandra Huller where she had talked about Justine Triet and Maranaza both being directors who collect lots of material and I think Sandra actually sort of talked about how it was something which she found to be more common in female directors than male directors but it sounded just like a great a great thing to me and kind of a like maybe a sort of slightly less ego driven way of direction by being like actually i don't necessarily know what i want and so it's worth having options for myself when i'm in the edit um and yeah i i'm very grateful for it there were lots of moments when we were shooting where i'll be like oh no i've got it and then my cinematographer nick morris would be like but maybe we should just try a different a different version in the exit i constantly was ringing nick up and being like

1:43:47Sean Fennessey:i love you thank god that you said this i was going to ask you if it um first of all that's an amazing insight that just like reading the the interview to say like i should think about actually the strategy and like kind of methodology of shooting the script that i've written is is really interesting but on the page would you say that it was funny did it like was it

1:44:06Amanda Dobbins:did it read as comedy i thought it was hilarious okay like then some people would read it and be like, no, this is not funny. I definitely intended it to be funny. And Alex, he was saying yesterday that one of the things which surprised him when he read it was that it made him laugh so much. And I think actually it was the kind of sincerity, the emotional weight which people found harder to understand on the page because that owes a lot more in the finished film to like very small moments of performance, like a look, which, you know, you don't tend to describe in the script.

1:44:48Sean Fennessey:I do think there are a lot of people who are going to come to the movie who have no access to the culture, like that don't understand it at all. And so I was wondering how much you thought about where to be kind of prescriptive or instructive or explanatory about what is transpiring versus just portraying the world as is and letting people figure it out for themselves.

1:45:10Amanda Dobbins:I definitely thought a lot about how to not just totally hold an uninitiated audience at arm's length. But my answer to that wasn't to lean into exposition or to over-explain the processes within this subculture. It was more to find tones which would make them enjoy themselves. So comedy being the main one, it was like, okay, well, if I'm watching a film and there's something which is a bit abrasive or unsettling to me. But then in the next moment, I'm laughing as I would if I would watch like a Bridget Jones movie or whatever, then I'm going to be less inclined to leave the cinema at the first blowjob.

1:45:50Amanda Dobbins:So that was kind of my tactic. I get a bit turned off by films where it's about a kind of niche subject matter. And then the film is constantly being like, by the way, this is how this subculture does it. It feels like you're, as the filmmakers, you're existing and removed from the subculture you're portraying.

1:46:14Sean Fennessey:Yeah, that's really interesting. I was also curious about the choreography of the movie. You got this wrestling set piece right in the middle, and there's obviously multiple sex scenes in the film. And so how you just even kind of strategize to shoot that sort of thing, I'm so fascinated by. Is it like choreographing an action sequence or a dance sequence?

1:46:32Amanda Dobbins:I have not got much experience choreographing action sequences and I imagine they're a bit more involved I um the wrestling scene was definitely the most like involved choreography and we got a stunt coordinator and um but I sort of I'm a big wrestling fan and it was one thing where I sort of on the page was pretty prescriptive and being like and then they do this move then they do this move then they do this move um with the sex it was more about finding a balance actually You know, the sex scenes definitely were the longest blocking on the day of any of the scenes because we'd like start with what we had on the page and then there'd need to be quite a lot of readjustment.

1:47:13Amanda Dobbins:You know, for instance, the orgy scene, they were having sex on these trestle tables, which were incredibly wobbly. So we had to like do work around for that kind of thing. But it's about, in my experience, working with an intimacy coordinator in those sex scenes, it's about finding enough structure so the actors then feel confident providing the present tense to it and not having to necessarily be like, right, I'm going to do 16 pumps. And then you can always tell when a sex scene has been too choreographed.

1:47:48Sean Fennessey:Right, right. There's a kind of a somewhat abstract idea that's in the movie that I really like, which is that yearning is not connected to sex. That like there is this idea of longing for something that isn't just like a physical longing that the movie kind of like walks through. and I don't know how much you had to kind of specifically thought about that because so few movies like genuinely authentically portray sex um especially not a lot of queer movies especially not a lot of queer movies that are released by studios so okay I mean can you can you kind of talk through that because I think we think of we kind of like collide those two things and they're not the same yeah and I think I think it's you know obviously it's not one size fits all but

1:48:32Amanda Dobbins:often the experience of coming into knowledge about sex and about your desires is learning that actually there is a difference between those two things. In your first love, you associate that immediate sexual desire with longing and initially you think, okay, well, that combination is love maybe, but then as your expectations for other parts of a relationship chafe up against the good sex you're having, then they begin to separate. And I think it's kind of the journey which Colin goes on in the film is being like, right, well, there's this man, Ray, who sexually satisfies me massively and in some ways emotionally satisfies me, but in some ways doesn't.

1:49:21Amanda Dobbins:In some ways I need more. And I think eventually that's what creates the real source of conflicts in the film.

1:49:28Sean Fennessey:I think it's such an amazing aspect of the story that you're telling. I also really like the way that you portray Colin's parents and the complexity of engaging with something like this and the desire for sensitivity and then the loss of control of the sensitivity around their son and the relationship that he's in. How did you think about how to write that?

1:49:51Amanda Dobbins:I, with them, was sort of really reacting against the tropes of parents in queer cinema. are. I think I have quite a low attention span generally and specifically, I'm just a bit bored of seeing that arc in queer narratives where parents go from not accepting their gay kids to then over the course of the film accepting them. I was like, if we're going to set this in modern day Britain, it's more typical really these days for parents to be accepting, but that acceptance isn't sort of objective. The definition of acceptance I think fluctuates depending on how normative the homosexuality you're presenting is.

1:50:38Amanda Dobbins:And so it was kind of an interesting question for me, like, okay, what if you start with incredibly accepting parents, like caricature-ishly, not a word, accepting parents. And then at a certain point, their son gets the boyfriend they've always wanted him to have, but that boyfriend turns out to come in a package which they don't recognize, which I think in some very valid ways, they find a warning or off-putting. So yeah, we sort of reverse that typical trajectory.

1:51:13Sean Fennessey:I'm curious more broadly for the pathway to filmmaking in England right now. What was the journey like, the sort of 10-year journey that you were on? How do you find it? What is the sort of state of the industry for young filmmakers from your perspective?

1:51:26Amanda Dobbins:I think that my journey was fairly typical. I mean, I didn't go to film school, which is less typical. but um but shorts is really the gateway into into independent film it's um it's making a short and it's very competitive obviously but then if you have a short which does well which you know someone likes or goes to a good festival then often the great thing about the uk is you have public funding so like the bbc or the bfi or film four might then be like okay we'll give you a we'll give you a um a fee to write a script for us, to develop a script with us, which is what happened for me and a bunch of filmmakers I know.

1:52:09Amanda Dobbins:But as with everywhere, but it's certainly true in the UK, that funding is really limited. And there's definitely massive issues in terms of class inequality and social inequality and who is even able to get on the path to accept that kind of funding so i think it's like there's still a lot of work to do in making making sure that there's sort of equal opportunity when it comes to funding and like what are your ambitions

1:52:41Sean Fennessey:at this point now that you've made this like do you want to make bigger films do you like staying in a kind of independent lane i well i definitely think i want to stay in an independent lane for

1:52:52Amanda Dobbins:now. I really, one of the best things about making this film was that I cared so much about it and it took a long time, but I made it with people who I really felt protected by. And I also had a degree of control over the outcome because the budget wasn't stratospheric. And I want to give myself the opportunity to make bigger worlds and hopefully next time have a little bit more money. But if I think about filmmakers whose careers I really admire someone like Joachim Trier. You know, his body of work feels like he's just been able to maintain a sort of authorship over it by working at a scale which isn't totally prohibitive of control.

1:53:49Amanda Dobbins:And I think that's what I want to do, yeah.

1:53:51Sean Fennessey:It's interesting. I talked to him last year on the show too, and he spoke a little bit somewhat similarly about kind of staying in his native country and utilizing the structures that are built up around filmmaking in his country and how beneficial that's been for him. And he's kind of dipped out a little bit from time to time. But by the same token, you've got an Alexander Skarsgård movie, A24, distributing here in the United States, that there is maybe the appeal, too, of a wider reach. So I always ask younger filmmakers whether or not they want to go bigger, for lack of a better phrase.

1:54:25Amanda Dobbins:I mean, it was definitely an ambition of mine with this because of the subject matter that it wouldn't be relegated to the underground. And I think that having Alexander come on board was very necessary to convincing even financiers on our low budget film to finance it. because there was a lot of concern. I think that I was going to make some unrated thing with actors who wouldn't bring people into the cinemas and no matter how good the end product was, it would be a big loss and no one has any money at the moment. So you can't roll the dice on something which is definitely going to be a loss.

1:55:05But I think maybe going forward,

1:55:10Amanda Dobbins:it'll be the same thing. If I want to work with big name actors, it's because either, you know, I think they're brilliant, which I did with Alexander, and because they're going to help get a film financed, which otherwise would be tricky to get financed. Quickly, I'm curious about the long life of promoting a movie.

1:55:34Sean Fennessey:This film premiered at Cannes. I saw it at Telluride. It's February 5th, we're talking. It's still not out in theaters.

1:55:40Amanda Dobbins:Yeah, geez.

1:55:41Sean Fennessey:What's that like to go through the nine-month spin cycle after you've completed the work? It is wild.

1:55:48Amanda Dobbins:It's really wild how, you know, the journey of this film, because it's very much a first for me, it's been like full of excitement. But nine months in, like now, I'm starting to be, when we go to like Q &As, I'm like, but surely everyone's heard. I've said this like 20 ,000 times now and I definitely am like feeling hungry to get writing again. I was like warned by other filmmakers that, you know, it was naive to think that while you're on the road promoting a film you'll be able to just crack on with your next one and I sort of arrogantly was like, yeah, I'll just knuckle down and I have not put pen to page at all for like nine months.

1:56:33Amanda Dobbins:So I'm actually, you know, We finish doing basically all of the promo stuff for this film in a couple of weeks, and then I'm going to go lock myself away for six months and not speak to anyone about Billy and Ever Again.

1:56:45Sean Fennessey:Do you know what it's going to be that you're going to put a page about?

1:56:49Amanda Dobbins:I do, I think. I don't think I can say, but I've recently worked out the idea. So I'm going to crack on. Good luck.

1:56:59Sean Fennessey:We end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they have seen? you've seen anything great recently film well it could be damien chazelle once said the the roman coliseum the moon last night exactly i um i prefer i'll say a film the last great film i saw

1:57:16Amanda Dobbins:was the love that remains the lena oh i haven't seen it yet yeah tell me about it i firstly am you know big fan of lots of his films i thought that godland was like maybe the last film which truly stunned me where I went, like, God, this is masterful. But The Love That Remains is, I guess, more in the spirit of family kitchen sink drama. And yet it incorporates these sort of slapstick fantasy sequences, which feel very new for him. And it's also, you know, he's still working with a combination of actors and members of his family, but it's really laugh out loud funny. It's the last time I watched something in the cinema where I was like, like, gasping for air from a scene which made me laugh so much.

1:58:02Amanda Dobbins:So it's highly recommended.

1:58:04Sean Fennessey:It's a great recommendation. Harry, congrats. Thanks for doing the show.

1:58:06Amanda Dobbins:Thanks so much. Loved it.

1:58:12Sean Fennessey:Thank you to Sam Sanders. Thanks to Harry Leighton. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. Thanks to Lucas Kavanaugh for production support. Next week, we've got a draft. What was the draft?

1:58:23Sam Sanders:Oscar snubs.

1:58:24Sean Fennessey:Yeah, we did it already. Yeah, it was.

1:58:26Sam Sanders:I think it went well. It was great. The rules are complex and some people let their Oscar nerd freak flag fly, which, you know, this is we accept all tastes on this particular podcast. So that's fine. But it was I thought it was successful. I agree.

1:58:43Sean Fennessey:We'll see you then.

1:58:55Thank you.