Interview with Flipped director Rob Reiner

 

 

PTC: Your recent movie Flipped is based on a book of the same name by Wendelin Van Draanen. But unlike the book, which is set in the current day, your movie tells the same story, but in a late 1950's/early 1960s setting. What made you choose that setting? Did you do so purely because that was when you grew up, or because you think it's a more innocent time, or...?

 

RR: There were a couple of reasons. When I read the book with my son – which is how I found out about it, and how I was so touched by the story -- it felt to me like it was set in the late '50s, early 60s, even though the book was actually set in the modern day. I realized why that felt like that to me: because that's when I came of age, during that period. And I realized there was something very universal about this book, in that it captured those feelings of first love, the very powerful, confusing feelings you have about first love, and it doesn't matter when it is set. If somebody were older or younger than I am, the story still feels just as it did when you went through it – whenever you did.

 

Someone once said to me, when they saw Stand By Me, "Boy, this was exactly like my childhood. You captured my childhood exactly!" I said, "Oh, you were raised in a rural area?" "No, I'm from Manhattan." I realized then that you're basically talking about some very pure feelings that cut across time periods and localities. Now, because the early 1960s is the time period I knew about, I wrote it and decided to adapt it from that standpoint; but I also felt it had a universality to it, and it didn't matter when I set it. The story has a timelessness to it, and it didn't matter if it took place now or then. I wanted the film to focus on those pure feelings, stripping everything else away.

 

I also felt that if we'd set it today, we'd be dealing with a lot of Facebook and texting and all sorts of technological distractions, and I just wanted to get to this pure feeling you have when you first fall in love.

 

PTC: In a way, the 1950s setting is kind of universal, because kids today still grow up watching reruns of the 50s TV. They're familiar with that period, whereas older people today might not relate to Facebook

 

RR: Yes. Yes. That's true, though I never even thought about that.

 

PTC: You're obviously a media kid. Your father is Carl Reiner, who was on Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar, and who created The Dick Van Dyke Show. So you grew up surrounded by media, swimming in it. You must be aware of the tremendous influence media has.

 

RR: Yes. I've said this before, but my father was on television before we owned a television. That's how far back it goes with my family. My generation, the "Baby Boomer" generation, is the first generation to grow up with television, to actually have a television in every home. I do know the impact of media. Now, with the Internet, the impact of media is so much quicker than it ever was, but I don't know that it's much more accurate. Things disseminate so fast, without any kind of processing, and I wonder whether people are more or less informed than they were then. I do know that when I was young growing up, and even when I was playing Mike on All in the Family, the U.S. was a country of 200 million people at that time, and 45 million people a week would watch All in the Family. Almost a quarter of the people in the nation were watching that show; and since there were no TiVos or VCRs, you had to watch it when it was on. So 45 million people had a shared experience at one time, and the next day they would talk to their friends and neighbors about what they had seen. Now today, we're in a country of more than 300 million people, and if you have a big hit television show, you're seen by maybe 20 million people tops -- and you've got TiVo and all of that, so they're not even all watching it at the same time. So things have become much more diffused and fragmented, and I don't know that the technology, and all the niche marketing we have, that we see on cable, I don' t know that that's bringing us more together, or scattering us. I don't know.

 

PTC: Since you're so aware of this impact, how do you try to influence people with your films, and what messages do you try to convey?

 

RR: Well, I don't try to influence anybody. I don't try to convey a message. What I try to do is tell a story that I can connect with, something that means something to me. Something that I've been through, or I know what these characters are going through. I tell a story, and I hope it relates to a lot of people, and impacts them that way. But you never know. You tell stories, sometimes it reaches people, and sometimes it doesn't. There are a lot of ephemeral things like marketing that you can't control. The only thing I can control is what connects with me, what resonates with me. And I try to make movies about that.

 

PTC: What do you think is the point about Flipped that you hope people "get" when they see the movie?

 

RR: Well, I hope they get a couple of things. I hope that they get that we've captured what it really feels like to fall in love for the first time. But more than that, I hope they get the idea that young people need to have an emotional compass from adults somewhere in their lives. In the case of Bryce, his grandfather essentially shows him the way. Julie's family, the Bakers, really represent these strong family values, really good values. But Bryce's family, the Loskis, are living life on the surface a little bit and are more interested in material things. I hope viewers understand that the family with the stronger connection is the desired place to be.  Bryce needs to learn that, and he's lucky that he has his grandfather come into his life at a time when he needs that. His grandfather says, "You better be careful. I don't want you swimming so far out that you can't get back." And there is the danger that that could happen. We see that in Bryce's father, who has drifted away from what is important to him, and has become an angry person as a result.

 

There's also a scene where Julie goes along to visit her uncle, her father's brother, and he's got mental challenges. I feel that's the most important scene in the movie, because it speaks volumes about what's important in family. You stick by your family, you help your family, you do whatever you can to make their lives better, and that's the most important thing you can do. .Those are the values Julie was raised with, and not the values that Bryce was raised with, and he has to learn those things.

 

PTC: Bryce's father is pretty thoroughly unlikable throughout the picture, but there's that moment when Julie's brothers are talking about their band, and the father gets a little wistful, remembering when he used to play in a band. That was a delightful three-dimensional touch.

 

RR: What I wanted to do is give some insight into why he's as angry as he is. Bryce's father even says, "High school was the happiest time of my life. I loved being in high school." See, that's when he was happy, and then he turned his back on the things that made him happy and opted to try to keep up with the Joneses. And he became a very bitter guy as a result.

 

PTC: You've directed films in many different genres. You've mentioned what attracted you to Flipped, but what is it, in general, that attracts you to a project?

RR: Usually it's about the human experience. I try to find something about what it is to be a human and live on the earth and go through love, children, and those kinds of things. I look for things that I can connect with in some manner. You might look at a picture like Misery, and say, "Well, where does that fit?" But for me it had a very personal meaning, because it was about an artist wanting to break away from something he's been successful doing, to do something that's more meaningful to him. In my own case, I was doing All in the Family, which I loved doing as an actor, but I always wanted to be a director. It was the idea of not being allowed to do the things you want to do, because people will pigeonhole you, that attracted me to Misery. Some people never want their stars to move on and try new things. "I liked you better in...You were my favorite...keep doing that! DON'T DO ANYTHING ELSE!" So I understood what that character was going through. Misery maybe was a little narrower because it's more personal to me, about the life of somebody who creates things. But I have to connect in some manner with what the characters are going through.

 

PTC: Do you have any projects coming up?

 

RR: I just finished working on a movie script originally written by Guy Thomas, and I've done some work with Andy Scheinman, who's my writing partner, and it's called The Magic of Bell Isle. I don't want to tell you too much about it, because it's an unusual story. But that's the next thing.

 

PTC: Is it a fantasy movie, like The Princess Bride?

 

RR: No. (laughs) It's very real. Even though it's called "The Magic of," it's about a very, very real situation.

 

► Read our exclusive interview with star Madeline Carroll

► Read our review of Flipped