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For some films, Sundance is a quick ticket to theatrical distribution.  In 2004, films like Garden State, Napoleon Dynamite, and Saved! had advance buzz and were quickly acquired and put in theatres across the country.  Each of these films had elements that made them marketable.  Garden State was a love story with a killer soundtrack and Natalie Portman, and Napoleon Dynamite’s unique comic sensibility seemed sure to connect with young male audiences.  And the premise of Saved!- a satire skewering religious hypocrisy- was tailor-made for a year that would prove to be dominated by media stories on this very theme.

But other films had a more difficult time finding an audience, quite possibly because they portrayed characters and explored themes that aren’t common in mass entertainment.  Two such films from Sundance 2004  are Jane Weinstock’s Easy and Debra Granik’s Down to the Bone.  Both films center on unconventional and possibly unsympathetic women in extremely realistic situations.  Both films represent the best of what independent film has to offer, and I talked with Weinstock and Granik to find out what happened after they came home from Park City.

Easy Has it Hard – When Great Reviews Meet the Costs of Theatrical Exhibition

Easy follows Jamie (Marguerite Moreau), a woman in her mid-20s who can’t quite figure out how to balance sex and love.  The film’s originality stems from Weinstock’s choice of point of view:  the quirky, unpredictable character who might play the lead’s best friend in a conventional comedy is given center stage in Easy.  The result is a funny, sexy, and tender look at a girl who really won’t play by the rules.  Typically, this kind of character is seen as “risky” by those concerned with a film’s marketability (which is why she’s usually cast as the sidekick)..  Weinstock says, “Easy came out of my long history of unsuccessful relationships. But it is not strictly
autobiographical. I was teaching in the art department
at UCLA when I started the script, so I knew a lot of people the main character's age.  I ended up interviewing about 30 women in their 20s before I started writing.” 

Weinstock had difficulty from the beginning. “My producer (Gloria Norris) submitted the script to a number of independent [production] companies. There were several people at many of the companies who liked the project, but none of them were able to convince the company heads to produce it.  The reason [they gave as to why they passed] was always:  ‘I really like the writing, but I don't relate to the character's journey.’”  Ironically, the very appeal of Easy is that Jamie [the unconventional lead] seems like a realistic portrait of a complex woman – with bad habits, making wrong choices, and all.  So when the companies all passed, Weinstock decided to produce the film herself, indepdently.  “In the end, after contacting everyone I had ever met, I found a few investors and mortgaged my house.  We shot it in DV (PAL).”

In addition to Sundance, Easy played at a number of other prestigious film festivals, including Toronto, Nantucket, Florida, Atlanta, Maryland, Seoul, Goteborg, Cork, Boston, USA, Avignon NY, High Falls, and others.  It had a small theatrical release in 2004 through Magic  Lamp Releasing, garnering good reviews in The New York Times and the LA Times.  Unfortunately, Weinstock discovered that “It was very tough to keep it in the theatres.  There was so much competition, and so little money for P and A [prints and advertising].”  Weinstock’s experience is not uncommon.  Despite the increasing affordability of digital production, theatrical distribution remains costly– making it the last big challenge for independents, especially for those films without celebrity attachments.

Easy is now available on DVD, distributed by Screen Media through Universal.  President Robert Baruc [who picked up the film for DVD] says that they were drawn to Easy by its fun, sexy attitude, by Weinstock’s superb directing, and by Margeurite Moreau’s performance.  He said, “We realized that having Margeurite isn’t like having, say, Penelope Cruz, but we felt she was fresh and sexy and gave a wonderful performance.  We thought if we put her on the cover along with quotes from the reviewers and gave it an upbeat, romantic look it would do well, and it has.  Every major video chain carries it, and it’s rented well.  What we thought would happen did- people saw the box, read the quotes, rented it, liked it, and told their friends and family about it.” 

Weinstock says she has no regrets.  “I learned so much while I was making Easy. I learned a lot about working with actors- about how different actors can have very different needs and how they don't always know what those needs are. I also learned that if you don't have the performances, it doesn't really matter how good the shot looks.” More importantly, the difficulties that Weinstock had with Easy have done nothing to dampen her love of directing, as she emphatically stated, “Easy taught me that I love to make movies and I want to make many more.”

Read about Down To The Bone here.