Fortunately it’s a sci-fi thriller inspired by The OC’s parents, says the director

This is how Hollywood works: Writer and director BenDavid Grabinski moved to Los Angeles in 2005 in hopes of entering the industry. Six years later, he made a skillful short film, Cost of living, a business card that immediately gave him jobs writing large films. Some scripts caught your eye – your name is on a Adventure Time the script for the film somewhere in the Warner Bros. archives. – and Paramount even invited him to direct a “big, expensive action movie”. But in 2018, he still hadn’t made a real movie. Nickelodeon handed Grabinski the keys to restart the Are you afraid of the Dark? but still, it wasn’t film.

Drifting, he wrote Happily, a mystery-fiction (?) mystery sci-fi thriller that defies all conventional wisdom in the kind of films that are actually made today.

“This is the only thing I’ve ever written that no there’s an explosion in that, ”admits Grabinski. But it is the film that people with money in their pocket finally let it make.

“I was trying to write movies where I was like, ‘Well, what would other people like to get the green light?’ And this is what I wrote where everything was purely gut oriented, from writing to the cast, going through the direction and finishing. And I think [it took off] because it was very specific. It was one of those things where, if you read the first 15 pages, you will say, ‘What the fuck is that?’ or in a positive way? ‘What the hell is that that’s it? ‘”

Happily Joel McHale (Community) and Kerry Bishé (Stop and catch fire) as a husband and wife who, years after being married, still bring the fire of lust in everyday life. They love each other – and their grumpy married friends are all kind of tired of it. What happens next is the gender turnaround: a mysterious agent arrives at your door to “heal” the couple, someone ends up dead and a previously planned vacation retreat begins extremely strange as suspicions build up about what’s really going on.

Grabinski says that while the film is deeply personal, it also started with an annoying element from so many films and TV shows that he loves.

“The way my stupid brain works is that I combine things in really weird ways,” he says. “The original genesis of this idea was just that I really like the parents in The OC, Friday Night Lights, or Poltergeist – these really loving and conflict-free couples – and wanting to make a film about a couple like that. ”

Image: Fox TV

And let’s be clear: Grabinski loves some Sandy Cohen’s The OC. “As much as you want to love Ryan Atwood, he packs to go to Chino many times, and Sandy doesn’t pack to go, man. […] They’re just shit, you know? But if Stephen Root [who plays Happily’s shady agent Mr. Goodman] showed up at their door and said there’s something wrong with their wedding, I would have watched that The OC. “

As Grabinski struggled in his day-to-day “winning” in Hollywood, his appetite for watching and reviewing classic films only intensified. You can say that from Happily, which beckons everyone from Brian De Palma to Dario Argento to John Carpenter. There are also several MacGruber Easter eggs. “I couldn’t do that without having some notorious references to MacGruber, “he says.“ But[thereferralsarealsofilteredbyaveryintensifiedcinematographiccinematographicpresentationsystem”[thereferencesarealsofilteredthroughaveryheightenedtheatricalcinematicsillydeliverysystem”[asreferênciastambémsãofiltradasporumsistemadeapresentaçãoboboteatralecinematográficomuitointensificado”[thereferencesarealsofilteredthroughaveryheightenedtheatricalcinematicsillydeliverysystem”

In addition to all visual references, Happily it is also a student of style production. Grabinski admits that he meticulously planned his shots in order to give his directorial debut high production value – from vivid wide shot compositions to moving camera work and the kind of lighting you don’t normally see in an independent film – and the result is a film filled with comic actors (Paul Scheer, Breckin Meyer, Natalie Zea, Natalie Morales, Jon Daly, Kirby Howell-Baptiste and Charlyne Yi complete the cast) that is framed as if it were a paranoia thriller.

Still, he still hopes to do something explode on the screen at some point.

“The next thing I wrote is more strange and contains a lot of action scenes. So let’s go.”

Happily is currently available for rent in Amazon, Appleand other services.