Star Apps: 'The One I Love'
Whereas most moviemakers are happy to dissect every aspect of an new release, actor Mark Duplass and director Charlie McDowell are taking a more hush-hush approach about "The One I Love." "It's a romantic comedy with Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss," says the director. "They go for a couple's retreat through their therapist to see if they can save their relationship." You can't blame this discretion, considering that "The One I Love" has more twists and turns than your average film, not to mention a major surprise ending. But actor and director did open up about the movie's backstory, how Duplass relates to his Ethan character, what the movie says about modern relationships, and their favorite apps.
Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss play Ethan and Sophie, who are not each other's favorites in The One I Love, which opens nationwide on August 22.
(Credit: Radius-TWC)
How do you talk about a movie with so many spoilers?
Charlie McDowell: It's certainly tricky. It would be so much more fun if we could just blast out and explore, because it's such a good conversation piece. But at the end of the day, we just discovered that you do better as a viewer when you don't know what's in there.
How did this project get started?
Mark Duplass: Charlie and I met and became good friends and talked about making a smaller movie together, and I gave him this kernel of an idea that I thought could be made into a movie. He and his writing partner, Justin Lader, fleshed it out into a 10-page outline, which was amazing, and brought it to life with characters and a storyline. Then we picked this location to put it in and then reverse-engineered the movie to take place inside this location and wrote for all the things in there. So it's following along in what I've always described as the "available material school of filmmaking." Don't write a script and figure out how you're going to make it. Write a script for what you have at your disposal, so that you know you can make it. At that point we brought Elisabeth Moss in, and it happened very quickly, six months from when we first started talking about it. So there was still that energy. Everyone was feeling excited about it, and it still feels fresh. It's the difference between getting married after dating for six months and getting married after dating for five years.
How did the idea for the movie come to you?
Mark Duplass: We tend to, when we're first dating people, put forth this perfect version of ourselves, where we try to be more sensitive and loving and intelligent. They bring up a book that they read, and you've never read it, but you say, "Oh, yeah, I love that book." But then the shine comes off it, and how do you deal with that disparity of who you said you are and who you really are? That seemed fun and playful but also meaningful. We knew that this would be a good theme to explore through this magically real plot machination that we employ in the movie.
Ethan and Sophie seem very emblematic of a lot of couples today, where they're disconnected and don't have the time to devote to making it work. What kind of statement is the film making about modern-day couples?
Charlie McDowell: They're in this place a lot of us get into where they're in a rut. And how do you get out of it? Should we stay, or should we cut our losses and move on? We entered in a place of the relationship where Ethan had cheated on Sophie, so he's created this separation between them, and now they're stuck. A lot of times something needs to happen for a couple to get out of that rut. That's what ends up kick-starting our movie, and that's what gives them this shot of figuring out their relationship.
We had a lot of ideas about the questions we wanted to propose, and a lot of people wanna figure out what the movie means, what the ending means. For us it's less about finding those specific answers, and it's more about bringing up interesting questions. It's something that a lot of couples can relate to, because we didn't take the stereotypes of a romantic comedy. We tried to give the most natural, organic portrayal of what people actually do in relationships. So instead of black and white, it's playing in that gray area.
Mark Duplass: It was really important to us that this movie be a conversation piece. Not a statement about what couples should or shouldn't be, but that it opens a conversation. So it was important to have an ending that honored our approach to the movie.
Charlie McDowell on set with Mark Duplass in The One I Love.
(Credit: Radius-TWC)
Mark, knowing that you'd eventually play Ethan, when you were conceiving his character, did you insert yourself into the role in any way?
Mark Duplass: What I was able to bring was one perspective of my life experience, which was different than everybody else's. I've been with my wife for 12 years, and we have kids, so to be someone who was in the longest relationship and had experienced commitment in the longest shape or form, it was great, 'cause we were all in different places, relationship-wise. Charlie had been in a committed relationship for a few years, and so had [producer] Mel Eslyn. Elisabeth was getting out of a relationship, and Justin was perennially single. It was like "The Breakfast Club," where we all had these different perspectives, but we would share certain core experiences as well. For me that central question of what is the right decision when you're hitting the skids in the relationship: Is it that you're not working hard enough, and you should go to more therapy and be more forgiving and lower your expectations for what love can be, so you can have a partner and not die alone? Or should you have higher standards and say, "You know, we shouldn't have to work this hard" and cut the bait and find somebody else that fits better? That question never goes away. I don't care who you are. Those are the conversations I have all the time with all my friends, and that kept us connected to the movie.
What are your top five mobile apps?
Charlie McDowell: 1. I'm obsessed with Genius Scan, which is a way to scan a document and send it as a PDF. I use it at least twice a week.
2. I use Uber all the time.
3. I fly on American Airlines everywhere, so I use the American Airlines app.
4. I was about to tell you that I use Run With Map My Run, which is a fitness app. But I've only used it once, so that's a lie.
5. Fancy, the clothing website app.
Mark Duplass: 1. Twitter -- I use that all the time.
2. I use Real Estate by RedFin, 'cause I'm a real estate dork.
3. I use my Pandora app in the car to listen to the Disney music station with my children.
4. I use 7 Minute Workout, which I usually get through about 3 minutes of.
5. My most unused app is Headspace, which is a meditation app that I am really excited about and yet to open.
