Sundance Vet Joe Swanberg Throws an All-Star Party in 'Digging for Fire'

About a third of the way into Digging for Fire —the new comedy making its debut this week at the Sundance Film Festival — Chris Messina (Argo and The Mindy Project) drunkenly tears off his clothing, bares himself the camera, jumps in a pool, and then makes out with a barely dressed Anna Kendrick.

It’s a quick, silly moment that, for obvious reasons, sparked the first few questions at the Q&A that followed Monday-morning’s screening of this latest film from writer-director Joe Swanberg (Drinking Buddies, Happy Christmas). But it’s also an important scene, in that it helps explain the appeal of working with the prolific 33-year-old indie filmmaker, who’s gone from making small movies in Chicago bedrooms to working with big-name talents like Olivia Wilde, Lena Dunham and Jason Sudeikis, among others. As a director, Swanberg is part camp-counselor, part therapist to the stars, allowing his actors to improvise, shape their characters, and incorporate their own lives into the films.

Digging for Fire, Sundance veteran Swanberg’s astonishing 17th feature film in a decade, focuses on Tim (Jake Johnson) and Lee (Rosemarie DeWitt), stressed-out and financially strapped parents of a three-year-old son. He’s a gym teacher and she’s a yoga instructor, and they’re house-sitting in a tony LA neighborhood for one of Lee’s clients, an unnamed Hollywood star. As they squat in opulence, they talk about their troubles affording private pre-school, keeping the spark in their marriage, and other everyday concerns.

There’s a lot to dig into with the film (pun intended), and much of the plot comes from the personal lives of its director and stars. The idea of trying reconnect as a couple after having a child originated from Swanberg, himself a new parent (his wife, the filmmaker Kris Swanberg, directed the pregnancy comedy Unexpected, also at Sundance). Meanwhile, a subplot involving Tim — who becomes obsessed with digging up a skeleton he finds in his yard — was based on a freaky incident in which Johnson found what appeared to be a corpse in his yard, and asking the LAPD to investigate (they never showed up).

Working off a loose 10-page Digging outline, Swanberg allowed his actors plenty of freedom to build their own characters, improvise their dialogue, and shape scenes almost entirely. One of the centerpieces is a party sequence in which Tim invites two pals (played by Sam Rockwell and comedian Mike Birbiglia) to hang out in his temporary palace while Lee and Jude are gone for the weekend. Rockwell’s character brings the debauchery, inviting along a trio of boozing buddies, played by Messina, Anna Kendrick and Brie Larson.

During filming, Swanberg’s only instruction to his cast members was to party, and they had no problem obliging: At some point in the night, Messina dropped trou on his own accord, and hopped into the pool with Kendrick. Later, Swanberg told the very curious audience, he emailed Messina and asked for permission to use the footage. Once he saw the clip, Messina gave him his emphatic approval to “go with the c—k.”

Melanie Lynskey (HBO’s Togetherness) and Ron Livingston (Office Space), both Swanberg vets, also play minor roles in the film, while Orlando Bloom appears as the dreamboat dalliance that helps set Lee back on course to Tim. It’s easy to see how this sort of experience appeals to such actors in an increasingly franchise-driven Hollywood; instead of acting against green screen, they get to let loose and be human — and let it all hang out.