Made-in-Michigan movie 'Quicksand' is 'The Hangover' for millennials

Ray and Paul, best friends and co-best men at their pal Josh’s wedding, have one job to do: safeguarding the family heirloom wedding ring that has been mailed from Norway for the ceremony. But when Ray pawns his couch, he realizes the ring is missing and must be somewhere in the cushions.

As he says in despair, “I sold a $33,000 ring for 40 bucks."

Like a millennial version of Frodo and Sam in "Lord of the Rings," Ray and Paul must embark on a ring-driven quest that takes them across the Mackinac Bridge and inadvertently into the path of some deadly criminals. Car chases, gunplay and explosions ensue, all while the besties are simultaneously trying to win an online beverage contest with a big cash prize.

So much for them making a smooth transition into post-college life.

That, in a nutshell, is “Quicksand,” an engaging and surprisingly heartfelt indie comedy made in northern Michigan about young adults trying to do their best as fate keeps throwing its worst at them.

”We’ve called it a movie that’s a guide to surviving your 20s.,” says director and co-screenwriter JohnPaul Morris.

Shot in 2019 and put on hold by the pandemic, the small-budget film cost less than $100,000 to make, yet its production value looks closer to a million bucks.

But “Quicksand” isn’t a standout for its look alone. A smart, relatable script and winning performances by lead actors Tanner Presswood and Simon Elias helped it sell out four screenings at the 2022 Traverse City Film Festival, win the top prize at Wisconsin’s Eau Claire International Film Festival, nab an audience choice award at the Hell’s Half Mile Film & Music Festival in Bay City and take home best screenplay honors at the Grand Rapids Film Festival.

Related: Traverse City Film Festival, canceled indefinitely this year, evolves to a yearlong format

One of its biggest coups so far was being accepted into last year’s Austin Film Festival, a prestigious event for rising cinematic talent. It also has landed a distributor, Gravitas Ventures, and just finished an 11-city theatrical tour consisting of more than 100 screenings in Traverse City, Grand Rapids, Holland, Port Huron, Marquette, Escanaba, Iron Mountain, Manistee, Manistique, Sault Ste Marie, and Frankfort.

On Nov. 17,  "Quicksand" will be shown in southeast Michigan at Ann Arbor’s State Theatre.

Last month, the "bromantic comedy," as the movie describes itself, became available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV+, iTunes and other video-on-demand platforms. Not bad for a movie that was turned down by 25 festivals when Morris submitted an unfinished version.

“We knew how much was stacked against us, including a lack of time and resources,” he says of making his first feature film.

Fueled by passion-project energy and persistence, "Quicksand" has taken a long journey to reach audiences. Morris started the script — written by him, Jake Burgess and Broderick Steele — back in 2016. Filming took place over three weeks in September 2019 at locations in the Traverse City region, Grand Rapids and parts of the Upper Peninsula.

The cast and crew worked with a clear understanding that things had to get done quickly and without complications. According to Morris, who's based in Traverse City, any problems or delays in production could have resulted in the film not being finished. “We knew we were playing with fire. We had to be as strategic as we could in making sure everything would work, or at least giving ourselves the best chance."

Then in mid-March 2020, the pandemic shutdown happened, slowing the process of putting the finishing touches on the film. After the early rejections from the festival circuit, “Quicksand” hit a turning point when it was accepted by its hometown Traverse City festival, where it received “an incredibly warm reception” last year, says Morris.

“People seemed to genuinely be surprised and in love with it. We submitted again to a lot of the festivals that had said no the year before and (things) completely changed.”

Morris credits the rich, polished look of the film to the fact that his small crew of about 25 had a strong commitment and stronger visual skills. ”A lot of the people I brought on are just brilliant at lighting and camera position,” he says.

From the start, Morris says, he kept expectations low by warning his crew the production didn't have enough time to achieve a perfect look. Instead, the focus would have to be on the performances and story.

“Honestly, I think our lighting and camera team took that as a challenge. They just worked miracles,” he says.

The casting of the lead roles also was a minor miracle of sorts. Says Morris, “We knew the film was going to live or die on whether or not you liked, believed and connected with the characters …. Our two leads (had) to be good enough that the whole film can lean on them.”

Morris held online auditions open to anyone in the United States and committed to flying in actors from New York or Los Angeles if they were right for the part. Ironically, the role of Ray went to Presswood, an actor and visual storyteller in Traverse City who “sent us a video audition from a mile and a half away from our production office,” says Morris.

The other lead part, Paul, went to Elias, an actor and filmmaker based in Los Angeles who sent his video audition from Bogota, Colombia, where he grew up and happened to be at the time.

Presswood and Elias immediately started meeting via Zoom and talking on the phone in order to build a real-life friendship as soon as possible.  Onscreen, they convey the inherent decency and optimism of Ray and Paul, characters that Morris says “are shamelessly written off my best friend and I growing up.”

If Ray and Paul seem like nice guys trying to figure out a confusing world, it's because they reflect what Morris and his friends were concerned about in their youth. “So many of the conversations that my friend group had growing up were very much fixated on figuring out how to live, how to do it right, holding each other accountable," he says.

In some ways, “Quicksand” is the emotional opposite of "The Hangover,” the hit 2009 comedy about men immersed in dangerous adventures just days before a wedding. Light on meaningful bonds of friendship and heavy on over-the-top gags, "The Hangover" had a Gen X sarcasm that contrasts with the millennial sincerity of Ray and Paul.

“A lot of the film is about saying that it’s OK to ask for help,” says Morris. “You get through high school, you get through college and it leaves you in a place where you think you know everything. And for me, going through my 20s was learning I don’t know anything at all.”

As for the scene that gives the film its title, Ray and Paul’s encounter with a quicksand pit was accomplished without computer effects. The actors instead stood on platforms and created the appearance of sinking by bending their knees.

“It’s very convincing for about five seconds at a time,” says Morris of the three sequences that were filmed in order to show them stuck in the muck at roughly knee, waist and shoulder levels.

When those sequences were edited together from about 20 different takes, the fake quicksand was so convincing that it surprised even Morris. “I remember the moment where my editor and I looked at each other and were like ‘Wait, this looks real!’”

Morris is the director and founder of a film production company in Traverse City, Practical, that does mostly commercial work. He hopes to make more films in his home state, but notes that a lot of what happens next depends on how well “Quicksand” does from this point onward. With a promotional budget of about $3,000 and streaming competition from megahits like “Barbie,” the goal is to build a word-of-mouth campaign that spreads awareness of the movie beyond Michigan and throughout the United States and abroad.

”I would love to make more films in Michigan. This is where I love being, this is where I love working. There's so much talent here that just needs a platform,” says Morris.

“I think that’s where a lot of the success of our movie came from, was just giving a platform to the talent that was already here, already ready to go. We just assembled them into one effort.”

Contact pop culture critic Julie Hinds at jhinds@freepress.com.

'Quicksand'

Screening and Q&A with the filmmakers

7 p.m., Nov. 17

State Theatre, 233 S. State St. in Ann Arbor

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Made in Traverse City, Michigan's U.P., 'Quicksand' movie is heartfelt