C (3:33)

Enjoy.

B (3:34)

Welcome, Paulie. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked. Thanks for talking about your beautiful film Midwinter Break. Congratulations.

C (3:42)

Thank you so much for having me. And I'm so glad you liked it.

D (3:45)

I loved it.

B (3:45)

As I was just saying, I would frame any scene as a photograph on my wall. It was that beautiful.

C (3:51)

That is so nice of you to say. Thank you very much. That's great.

B (3:54)

So actually we're having a screening tonight. When this airs, it will have already happened, but the editor of the book on which the film was based saw my post and is actually coming to the screening.

C (4:04)

Oh, no way.

D (4:05)

Really?

C (4:06)

Yes. Oh, that's quite a big audience member. I'm nervous now. I want to know what they think.

B (4:13)

I will let you know. How did this project come to be. Did you read the book? And how did it come to be that this was a beautiful novel turned film?

C (4:23)

Well, actually, as it happens, Film four and the producer, Guy Healy, had picked it up a good while before I was on board and they picked it up pre publication and had developed already two drafts of the script by the time that I read it. So I had been directing. I've been a theatre director mostly for the last sort of 15 years or so, and Guy, I think, had seen a couple of shows that I had done at the National Theatre here in London, which were also two handers about the impossibility of or the difficulty of making contact with somebody, even though you might really love them, and that were very much about behaviour and Very performance based. And I think that he thought that that might be a good fit for this particular material. So.

B (5:11)

Interesting. And would you mind just explaining a little bit more about the film and what it's really about for people who haven't seen it yet, of course.

C (5:19)

So the film is about Geri and Stella, who are a Northern Irish couple now living in Glasgow in Scotland. And they have been married for 40 years and they. They very much still love each other. But as in so many long term relationships, I think there is a sense that for one reason or another, they have been drifting apart. There's an increasing distance between the two of them. And Stella books a holiday to Amsterdam partly to try and get to the bottom of what this distance might be. And during the course of that holiday, an event from their past begins to re unfurl itself and to change the emotional. The nature of the emotional landscape between them. Beautiful.

B (6:04)

Well, one of the themes I thought of the film was, which Stella says at one point in answer to a different question of what are you doing in Amsterdam? And she says, you know, we haven't got much time left. And I feel like that's another big piece of the story is how do you make meaning out of the time you have left? Which is a question so universal that everybody should be asking at one point, how do we make meaning of our lives? What is it all about? Like, is this. And I feel like she has this sort of later stage questioning and is looking to spirituality, to religion and sort of grasping around to find the answer. Tell me a little bit about. About that and how you portrayed that.

C (6:45)

Sure. For sure. I mean, absolutely. And I think that was one of the things that I was most drawn to. That sense of exactly what you were describing, I think is extremely clear in the book. And I think was one of the big reasons why I was interested in it as a story. In the book, Stella is. She's a teacher of Old English. And in the book it says that one of the reasons that she's drawn to Old English is because of the language's ability to move in a blink to the mystical. And I think that she is somebody who also has a kind of ability to move in a blink to the mystical. So she is somebody that sees, is conscious of the miracle of daily life. She also has this amazing image where she talks about life being like, again with the Old English thing, like one of those old sort of, I guess like Viking Y dining halls with big doors at either end. And she talks life being like a bird that flies in at one window and flies through and then is gone. And it's just the journey of the bird through the building. So there's this sense of life always being on the move, always being ungraspable, always being just ahead of the thing that you can reach or make sense of. And I guess that certainly in the book that translates to this amazing sort of sense of longing that runs all the way through it. It's got this like real undertow of a sense of somebody yearning for something bigger. And as you say, I think we can all identify with that. And there's a bravery in her kind of determination to say, at this stage in my life, I'm going to go for the thing that I think is meaningful. And so many of us don't do that. And I think that's the heart of what the story is about and about, certainly of what Leslie's brilliant performance is about. I think she was so good.

B (8:27)

Oh my gosh. I mean, just. She could just move a muscle. I'm like, does the face have that many muscles? I didn't even realize how many expressions.

C (8:36)

Right, I know, I know, I know. And I mean, both of them, I sort of. We had this sort of joke all the way through filming that. I mean, because it is, it is a two hander, essentially, of course, you know, like, basically my options when shooting were either point a camera at Leslie or Kieran or Amsterdam. And like, all options were inevitably and consistently excellent. It did certainly make my life much easier. Yeah.

B (9:00)

Well, the relationship between the two of you and House, there were occasional scenes of them apart where, like at the record store, in the bar. And you know, most of the scenes were of them together, but sometimes when they were apart, we got to really understand both sides of the story. And while most of the time I feel like the viewer is rooting for Stella.

C (9:18)

Right.

B (9:18)

We're like in her head a lot. There are a lot of times, especially that heartbreaking scene at the airport at the end, like, where you really feel like, okay, well, this is what Geri is feeling too. And it's not always so perfect for either party. And then in one scene where she's talking again about spirituality a little bit and saying how she had believed in this one myth that happened that was in a painting. And she was sort of like, you know, why don't you believe in what I believe? And he was like, but you're not hearing what I'm saying either. Like, I'm entitled to my beliefs too. And it made me stop watching it. Like, yeah, he is like what do you do when there is that disconnect? How do you bridge that? I don't know.

D (10:01)

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A (13:02)

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C (13:35)

Sure. For sure. 100%. I think you're absolutely right. And I guess, you know, I mean when we were making the film and talking to Kieran about Jerry's position, we were always really clear that his position is faith based in exactly the same way. You know, his need to believe that what happened in the past, like the outcome of that was determined by something that was rational rather than irrational, is no less an article of faith for him. And I guess the film is to some extent about the challenge of. And again, you know, just stepping back from the specifics of this story, I think it's something that we can all relate to. But how difficult it is sometimes to keep faith in a person when your respective faiths are so different, you know. And that's the thing that I think every long term relationship will come across at some point in its evolution.

B (14:22)

Well, it also really made me think about that particular age group. Right. They were. She must have been in her early 70s or something like that. Definitely over the 65 because she couldn't get into the other. She was too old for something she wanted to do that was 65 and below. So. And just how many people are that age and maybe feeling the same thing and is there something we can do from a societal perspective or something? It just made me think this community needs something more. It should be easier for them to be given the tools that they need and maybe there's something that we can do Us, you know, younger folk to. Because we'll be there in a minute too.

C (15:01)

Sure. I mean, absolutely. I mean. And I guess, you know, the thing in that that I suppose I find very relatable is this sort of sense of. Particularly as a woman of that age, she spent so much of her time being a mother, you know, and so much of her identity has been, you know, that's why, to some extent, why she hasn't made a change earlier is that she's gone. It's my. And I think she would phrase it as duty as well as her passion to invest in the lives of her children. And now that her son has moved and she doesn't have that kind of physical day to day contact with her child or her grandchild, she's sort of looking back at her life and going, oh, is that what I did? Is that what it was? You know, And I think that that feels like something that a lot of people I know are going through.

B (15:48)

It also made me want to never reject calls from my parents because.

C (15:54)

Oh, good.

B (15:55)

When she calls in the beginning and it goes to voicemail and she just, like, put down the phone and they were so. She was so sad. I was like, oh, my gosh, like in our busy lives, maybe we don't always pick up the phone. Maybe it's just me. But, you know, no, no.

C (16:11)

And again, you know, I mean, and this is also very true of the book. And it was one of the challenges, I think, in terms of trying to carry it across to making a film. But, you know, when you look at a situation like that, from the outside, the stakes don't seem so high. But when you're the person that's living it and when that is your street view on life, somebody not picking or for Jerry Stella not taking his hand at the road, that's a 10 out of 10 stakes event. And that was one of the things that we really wanted to try and get a sense of going into making the film was how these little moments really, really, really matter in the context of a relationship and a life lived,

B (16:46)

you know, so as a filmmaker, how do you approach projects and getting attention to projects when obviously the film goer has so many demands in their attention? Movie theaters are like becoming a thing of the past. And yet here you have this little jewel of a film that should find a wide audience. We go through the same thing in publishing. How do you find the right audience for your creative projects? How do you think about that going forward?

C (17:16)

Well, in this case, again, I feel like so much about making this particular project has just been so sort of outrageously fortunate. But we have had focus features on board right from the beginning. And of course, there just is nobody better at finding a way of holding that story and the narrative of that story in a kind of wider cultural conte. I agree with you. I mean, I feel like this kind of film is probably quite unusual in the landscape at the moment. In that it's. It's not, you know, I mean, much like the book, it doesn't give you a sort of easy out. Like it's what we wanted it to be. Was like full of feeling without being sentimental. Which is not to say that sentimental films are the ones that succeed. I don't mean that, but I guess it's sort of. It's not a straightforward kind of narrative. There's not a moment of sort of instant narrative catharsis, which I guess makes things more marketable, probably. So I really hope that what we wanted to do was to try and be sort of ruthlessly truthful about the way that those relationships play out in real time or whether a relationship plays out in real time, and hope that that sort of truthfulness was something that would end up speaking to people without us having to say it lives in this particular genre space or something like that.

B (18:34)

Another thing it made me want to do is maybe not travel as much. I travel a lot and like the airport scenes and like just the disruption to your life that it brings. I was like, I'm not sure this is such an ad for travel, you know.

C (18:48)

Well, you know, what was great doing it from London was that you can just get on the train to Amsterdam. And I tell you that that does make it, yes, a very. A very different experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we did a lot of filming in Schiphol, which was enough to put anybody off airport travel for.

B (19:04)

Did they really let you film inside the Anne Frank Museum?

C (19:08)

No, no. And actually, in some ways I'm sort of glad that they didn't. They were very, very supportive and brilliant and they allowed us to film outside, which is not a thing that they always do, I don't think. And I think that there was, you know, they certainly let us go and spend time there and recchiot and take everything that we needed to build a replica. But I think, you know, quite rightly, there is a sense of that building is a sort of almost sacred or religious space. And I think that's what we're trying to do in the film is to say that it's like another church in a way or another kind of religious space. I mean, a place that is, that, that has its own integrity. And I think that I would have felt terrible crashing in there with cameras and a crew. So I, I, I, that that was one of the few things that we built and that isn't really.

B (19:55)

I should have known.

C (19:56)

No. Well, the production design did a really brilliant job, I think. And it does look just like it.

B (20:02)

I was there, I was in Amsterdam and went there, it must have been three years ago for my in law's wedding. And I was like, it looks exactly like it. So I don't know.

C (20:12)

It is an amazing space, isn't it? I mean, the feeling of walking in there is, is like nothing else really. And yeah, I don't think I could have forgiven myself if it walked in with like headphones and a monitor and the same thing. It wouldn't, it wouldn't have felt like the right thing to do.

B (20:25)

Drinking coffee and, you know, craft services behind the staircase and like the whole thing. Oh my gosh. So what, what is your next project after this?

C (20:35)

Well, I'm not sure if I'm totally allowed to announce every aspect of it, but I've written the next one and it's, it's a thriller. So very, very, very different. And that's with BBC Films and Fable Films and Hinterland. So that is a new. Yeah, that's. I think we're about to announce it, but I probably can't tell you too much more about it just yet.

B (20:57)

Well, congratulations. Well, Polly, I'm a fan. I love your eye for the everyday, for the small moments that matter. Because that is what life is. It's just made up of those infinitesimal, infinitesimal like movements and gestures. And that's how we get through our day, is interpreting what all of those mean. And that's what this movie does so well.

C (21:21)

Oh, well, thank you. I mean, that really was, I mean, what you've just said was sort of entirely my mission statement in going in to make it. So I'm so thrilled that that's what you've got from it. So thank you. That's great. Great.

B (21:31)

Check plus.

C (21:33)

Exactly. And coming back, let me do another interview with you.

B (21:37)

All right, well, thank you so much and I'll enjoy the screening. Can't wait.

C (21:41)

So nice to meet you. Thank you so much.

D (21:43)

Take care.

C (21:44)

Bye Bye. Bye.

B (21:45)

Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibby, formerly Moms don't have Time to Read Books. If you loved the show, tell a Friend, leave a review. Follow me on Instagram Ibbyowens and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.

A (22:07)

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