The Heaving ‘Wuthering Heights’ and the Throbbing ‘Pillion’: A Very Horny Valentine's Day Double Feature

Sean and Amanda are joined by Sam Sanders from the Sam Sanders Show to break down two new horny and thorny releases. They begin the show with an extensive and fascinating conversation about Emerald Fennell’s ‘Wuthering Heights,’ starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi (2:22). They explain why they found her provocation unsuccessful, why Robbie and Elordi were miscast in their roles, and how the film doesn’t look nearly as good as it should. Then, they discuss Harry Lighton’s delightful debut feature, ‘Pillion,’ starring Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling, which they all absolutely adored (1:02:13). Finally, Sean is joined by Lighton to discuss how he approached adapting the original source material for the film, why he purposefully avoided classic biker and leather films as inspiration, and how he coordinates intimacy on screen (1:23:33). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Harry Lighton and Sam Sanders Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh A State Farm agent can help you choose the coverage you need. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.® Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I'm pro football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, and I lived for a long time with something I did not know the name of: major depressive disorder. I carried sadness and anger because I thought I could handle it alone, but I couldn't. Now I want to make sure others know that that support is out there. If you're experiencing similar symptoms, talk to a healthcare professional. Visit mddallies.com to watch my story.

• 0:25Speaker 01

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• 0:37Speaker 02

  I needed more from my antidepressant, so my doctor added Caplyta lumateperone, proven to provide greater relief from depression symptoms than an antidepressant alone, building on my progress without starting over. Caplyta is for adults with major depressive disorder when used with an antidepressant and is available by prescription only. Individual results may vary. In clinical trials, weight gain was not common.

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• 1:24Speaker 02

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• 1:46Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Finacy.

• 1:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 1:47Sean Fennessey?

  And this is the Big Picture Conversation Show about sex, love, yearning, desire, and movies. Today on the show, we are joined by our pal, Sam Sanders. It's so good to be here. Thank you for being here, host of The Sam Sanders Show. We are here talking about two very sexy, horny, unusual movies. The first one, of course, is Wuthering Heights, the much-anticipated Emerald Fennell adaptation of the Bronte novel. The second is Pillion, which is written and directed by Harry Lighton. Harry Lighton is a guest on the show today. We talked about how his movie, which is a Domcom, a BDSM rom-com, exhibits power, love, vulnerability, difficulty in relationships, and the size of Alexander Skarsgård. We will get into that after our conversation, and we'll start talking about Wuthering Heights right after this.

• 2:33Amanda Dobbins?

  This episode of The Big Picture is presented by State Farm.

• 2:36Sean Fennessey?

  You know those friends who show up for whatever you're into? The ones who'll debate which superhero universe is better or binge true crime documentaries with you at 3:00 in the morning? Those friends are gold.

• 2:45Amanda Dobbins?

  State Farm is like that, helping you figure out the coverage that actually fits. Car, home, life, whatever you need, they've got your back. And if you want a hand, a local agent is just a tap away on their award-winning app.

• 2:56Sean Fennessey?

  Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Sam, welcome.

• 3:01Speaker 05

  It's so good to be here.

• 3:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Thanks for coming.

• 3:02Speaker 05

  I tell you, as a longtime fan, being where y'all make the sausage, it's quite nice.

• 3:08Sean Fennessey?

  What's it like? How does it feel?

• 3:09Amanda Dobbins?

  And he thought, what's different?

• 3:10Sean Fennessey?

  Sausage is an interesting metaphor for this episode.

• 3:14Speaker 05

  A lot of lights.

• 3:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Yeah, I guess you asked for that.

• 3:17Speaker 05

  Fancier mics. Four cameras. This is big time. This is big time.

• 3:23Sean Fennessey?

  Well, we have been on your show the last couple of years, and we wanted to have you on too. And you know, your setup is nothing to shy about.

• 3:30Speaker 05

  People like it because it's like a blue sky background and plants and a rug. But that is all IKEA and Amazon. We are public media. It's budget. Our sign that hangs with the station logo, our producer like screwed that up himself.

• 3:44Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, well, this is...

• 3:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Sir, that's wallpaper. So it's like a...

• 3:48Sean Fennessey?

  This is the power of big tech right here in front of you. Let's talk about Wuthering Heights, okay?

• 3:53Speaker 05

  Let's talk about it.

• 3:54Sean Fennessey?

  So just as a little... We'll give background on the movie, but I want to give a little background on Emerald Fennell between Amanda and I. So we have covered her two previous films on the show. Promising Young Woman, which is a movie that I liked some aspects on, but was very mixed to negative, especially on the ending. I think you were more or less the same, maybe even more negative on it than I was.

• 4:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I think so. I think that's going to be a theme.

• 4:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Saltburn, not a big fan of. You were not...

• 4:20Speaker 05

  Playing in my face. Playing in my face. Was what she was doing with that movie.

• 4:25Sean Fennessey?

  But we, we gotta give her some credit.

• 4:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 4:27Sean Fennessey?

  She has emerged, I think, as one of the very few brand name female filmmakers in studio filmmaking in the last 10 years.

• 4:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 4:35Sean Fennessey?

  And she has an identity. There is, uh, there's excitement about this movie.

• 4:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 4:39Sean Fennessey?

  When she does something now, there's a lot of noise.

• 4:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 4:42Sean Fennessey?

  And so.

• 4:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 4:42Sean Fennessey?

  I've had this date circled on the calendar for a long time.

• 4:45Amanda Dobbins?

  And we should, we should explain, Sam is here because we got to do your show last month and we were trying to figure out a good opportunity for you to come on the show since Wicked for Good didn't really work out for any of us.

• 4:56Speaker 05

  I was, I was a total wicked one, Stan.

• 4:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 4:59Speaker 05

  Wicked two, I just kept my mouth shut.

• 5:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 5:02Amanda Dobbins?

  But so I think, um, you know, Pillion came up on the episode that we did with you.

• 5:07Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:07Amanda Dobbins?

  And, um, and then we were talking afterwards, like interest in Wuthering Heights and what's gonna go on. And you said, and you seemed curious.

• 5:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, I feel about Ms. Fennell. You know that Will Ferrell quote from Anchorman or the Kanye West song, like, it's provocative. It gets the people going.

• 5:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 5:27Speaker 05

  That's her movies. It's provocative on purpose. It makes you pay attention.

• 5:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 5:31Speaker 05

  But with all of her films that I've seen, the, the, the landing isn't stuck. The plane doesn't land the right way. But there are moments where you say, oh, that's interesting.

• 5:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 5:44Speaker 05

  I'm gonna talk about this.

• 5:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 5:46Speaker 05

  This is worth discussing.

• 5:47Sean Fennessey?

  I think that is a skill and a skill worth acknowledging.

• 5:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:51Sean Fennessey?

  It, it doesn't mean I approve.

• 5:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:54Sean Fennessey?

  But I, I'm, I'm kinda fascinated by this project. So let's, let's talk about Wuthering Heights, right? So, um, it is an adaptation written by Emerald Fennell. She directed the film. It's based on the Bronte novel, which was published in 1847. I read that this is the 35th film or television adaptation of this work, which even by the standards of great literature is a lot.

• 6:13Speaker 05

  Also, can I just ask? I have read multiple synopses of the book. I've read write-ups of how the book works. I've talked with friends who have read the book. It is one of the most confusing books ever written. Why then does every filmmaker say, I'll do it?

• 6:31Sean Fennessey?

  Well, what do you, what do you think it is?

• 6:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I think it's because of the tradition of the book in like English literary history, which comes, so 1847, it's the same year or a year after Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte's sister. And about 30 to 40 years after Jane Austen, and is just kind of, for whatever reason, considered like one of the great achievements. And also like a stopping point in terms of literature written by, written by women, Gothic literature. There are a lot of like taboos broken here. It was sensational at the time.

• 7:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 7:13Amanda Dobbins?

  So I think it's just like, it's IP, honestly. It's like, I mean, it is kind of like literary IP.

• 7:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 7:20Amanda Dobbins?

  And become, has become really buzzy. And so when you say Wuthering Heights, people, most people have some sort of

• 7:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 7:27Amanda Dobbins?

  reference or interpretation, or at least like Heathcliff has become a concept outside of this book.

• 7:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, like I, I had never engaged with the book or any of the movies.

• 7:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 7:36Speaker 05

  But I know Wuthering Heights exists.

• 7:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 7:39Speaker 05

  And I should pay attention to it.

• 7:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 7:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think you're right. And I think it is almost like because those books seem like a kind of response to the Jane Austen era of literature, where they're sort of like, almost like a Victorian rejection. You know, like desire can be expressed clearly and loudly. It doesn't have to be this kind of rom-com of manners, which a lot of those Austen books are. So, and, and that's very cinematic, you know, that, that level of desire and confusion.

• 8:03Speaker 05

  And darkness.

• 8:04Sean Fennessey?

  Totally. And, and just, just the setting is very, she conjures it. It's very visual. It's a great set piece for

• 8:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:12Sean Fennessey?

  um, a film story. There are a handful that are very, very notable. You mentioned that just this morning, you finished watching, I guess, probably the most famous version of the film, which is the 39 version, which was nominated for Best Picture, which famously stars Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff and Merle Oberon as Catherine, um, which is a film I like quite a bit. I think it's an interesting adaptation. It is very similar in some ways to this new version. It's differences, I think, are what makes it the superior film, but we'll talk about that.

• 8:40Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah.

• 8:42Amanda Dobbins?

  You guys really did the work also, which I appreciate. You watched a lot of adaptations.

• 8:46Speaker 05

  Well.

• 8:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I watched Cheated Rivalry to prepare for this podcast, but that's fine.

• 8:50Sean Fennessey?

  I do want to talk about Cheated Rivalry and what is happening right now.

• 8:53Amanda Dobbins?

  And I reread bits of the book because this, have you read this book before? It was not handed down to you.

• 8:58Speaker 05

  I was talking to a good friend who did read it, and I was like, give me a download. And she was like, the thing you need to know about this book is that like, it is so confusing.

• 9:06Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 9:06Speaker 05

  There's two families, because there's like the first gen, then there are kids fighting. There are multiple Cathy's, you forget who's telling what.

• 9:12Sean Fennessey?

  Multiple perspectives.

• 9:13Amanda Dobbins?

  And all the same names.

• 9:15Speaker 05

  And unreliable narrators. It's, it is, I don't want, convoluted, I say that.

• 9:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Totally, yeah.

• 9:21Sean Fennessey?

  It's like a literary experiment, the way that she's kind of shifting who's telling the story and why that person gets to tell the story at that time. It's a really interesting text, apparently. I haven't read it, though.

• 9:31Speaker 05

  Well, and also what I get when I talk to folks about the book, they're like, oh, this is a story of vengeance and like revenge, which is why I was so thrown off for Fennell to have the tagline for her Wuthering Heights be the greatest love story ever told. It's like Wuthering Heights is a revenge story, not a love story.

• 9:49Amanda Dobbins?

  And it is also just a bunch of people like alone in the middle of nowhere going like,

• 9:55Speaker 05

  Going crazy.

• 9:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Making decisions that I, that are very strange. There is like an isolating, wild, isolated, wild, like Gothic quality to all of it. But it's interesting, I was handed this, you know, in my like nerdy girl era, like after the Austin, along with Jane Eyre.

• 10:12Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 10:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, and.

• 10:14Speaker 05

  Did you like the book?

• 10:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I've always been more of an Austin than a Bronte, um, which, you know, is like, I do think there is a little bit of a, a divide there, but I think it was handed to me as kind of like, okay, now that you've read. The comedy of manners, the start like now.

• 10:32Speaker 05

  Let's get dark.

• 10:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. You're gonna understand the rejection of it. You're gonna understand the weirdness of it. But it was presented as like, not Girls Gone Wild, but like, this is, this weird stuff is happening here. Yeah. And not as like Star Crossed Lovers.

• 10:45Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm. Yeah. And I don't think anybody really understands the story that way, except for Emerald Fennell. She seems to be the only person who seems to be seeing the movie in that respect. Like, if you look at the Robert Fuest version from 1970, famously with Timothy Dalton, one of the first big things that he ever did. I mean, Louis Bonwell did a version of this story. Jacques Rivette did a version of this story. There's, we just talked about the 1992 version, which I still haven't seen, which is Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes in his first film role, actually.

• 11:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 11:13Sean Fennessey?

  And, and then in 2011, Wuthering Heights, Andrea Arnold made a version of it.

• 11:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 11:19Sean Fennessey?

  Which.

• 11:19Speaker 05

  Tried to watch that last night.

• 11:20Sean Fennessey?

  It speaks to something that is in the novel that is sort of hard to parse, which is some of the language she uses to describe Heathcliff's ethnicity or cultural background.

• 11:31Speaker 05

  The language of characters is.

• 11:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 11:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 11:33Speaker 05

  The N-word threw me for a loop.

• 11:35Sean Fennessey?

  She uses the word gypsy to describe him, but then later in the book, she describes him as sort of having like the whitest pallor possible, like whiter than the wall. So it's confusing like what, who Heathcliff is meant to be and where he comes from, because he's this, this.

• 11:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 11:47Sean Fennessey?

  Youngling who comes from nowhere, right? He's kind of adopted into this higher class family. So we don't know, like, is this a story about race?

• 11:55Speaker 05

  I think it is. And I think it needs to be. I think there are moments in the finale version of this film where you're like, this is supposed to be a person of color.

• 12:07Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 12:07Speaker 05

  Sorry to jump ahead, but there's a moment when Jacob Elordi is getting whipped and lashed and you see the lashes on his back. I'm like, okay.

• 12:16Sean Fennessey?

  It's recalling like 12 years of slavery, very, very overtly.

• 12:19Speaker 05

  And the 2011 version goes there. Heathcliff is played by a black person. And in that film, they're using the N-word. They're beating him. It's hard to watch, but it feels like the racial difference is something that the author of the original book intended to be a part of it.

• 12:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, yeah. So there's a, I'm just gonna quote this great piece written by Jasmine Vojnani for the, for New York Magazine, just for their book newsletter. So I like, honestly, don't know if we can even link to it, but it's great. It's called Book Gossip. And she spoke to a lot of literary historians and critics about this and about the language and. Like, is Heathcliff white? Is he not white? What ki- like, what kind of not white?

• 12:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 12:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, what would Bronte's intention have been at the time? What would have audiences have understood? And the scholars are, like, he's definitely not white in the, in the way that the other characters who identify as white.

• 13:13Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 13:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Understand themselves.

• 13:15Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 13:15Amanda Dobbins?

  In the, and that class and race or ethnicity are a huge theme of this, of this novel and the relationship, or the, you know, the rejection of Heathcliff and his relationship to the Lennon family, to the, to Cathy's family, et cetera. Like, the, the genealogical, or the, you know, what the actual descent is, there are lots of interpretations that he has.

• 13:38Speaker 05

  Someone said Indian descent.

• 13:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Indian descent, because there is that, some people suggest Irish, um, because of just like time and place and where, so, I, I don't know whether there's like an actual answer.

• 13:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, according to the scholars. I thought this was very interesting. I mean, I, I, I don't know the answer, but, but you're right, to the point that, and I guess I don't know whether Bronte thinks that he's specifically black.

• 14:03Speaker 05

  He is different enough that in this world, he is considered less than. And he speaks a different language at first in the book, no?

• 14:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, gibberish that no one understands.

• 14:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, so this, he is a foreigner, which is why it's so strange, in the Fennell version of this film, to see that played by Jacob Elordi. Right. Like, sure, let it be a white guy, but like, that one?

• 14:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 14:25Speaker 05

  He's so central casting. Yes. And he, he does a- For heartthrob.

• 14:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 14:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 14:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, for like, for brooding.

• 14:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 14:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Heartthrob, yeah.

• 14:34Speaker 05

  Like, they, like, yeah, it was a weird choice. It was a weird choice, and it felt like Emerald Fennell could have made a more interesting film and a braver film, had she grappled at all with race.

• 14:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, well, the, the, the book gossip piece also points out that then all of the other characters, who are pretty clearly white in the book, or at least their descriptions are not as developed.

• 15:00Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Are then cast by, played by non-white actors. So there's kind of like a race-blind thing going on here, which is-

• 15:08Speaker 05

  Which is always hard to pull off.

• 15:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is hard to pull off, but also, you- You know, ignores what is in the book, which is that race and class, which are intertwined in this society and also in, you know, in the world at large are like, are a major part of why the characters are doing what they're doing.

• 15:24Speaker 05

  There you go.

• 15:25Sean Fennessey?

  It is a, it is a really, it is an interesting and maybe inappropriate stroke that she has taken here. So it's not just that, you know, Hong Chow is playing Nellie, the sort of the handmaiden to Catherine. Shazad Latif is playing Linton, the Edgar Linton, this sort of the man who Catherine eventually marries.

• 15:42Speaker 05

  Which is crazy because like, he was too hot to hate. I'm like, this guy's attractive. I don't dislike him.

• 15:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. A lot of the Lintons are handsome, but they're stiffs.

• 15:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:52Sean Fennessey?

  Anyhow, the fact that she's doing that and then casting ultimately a lordy and also Owen Cooper as the young version of

• 16:00Speaker 05

  He was an adolescent.

• 16:01Sean Fennessey?

  And he was an adolescent. So she's kind of going like bad boy, bad boy. Like, these are the, kind of the, the classical bad boys in their age range right now. But they're white.

• 16:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 16:10Sean Fennessey?

  So for her to go against that, but also go against so much of the intentionality and the purpose of the novel. I kind of wanted to talk about the idea of adaptation with you guys before we get into the text of the movie. So a deeply faithful adaptation of a novel runs the great risk of being very boring and

• 16:28Speaker 05

  And in, and in the case of this book, Weathering Heights, it would have been unable to understand.

• 16:34Sean Fennessey?

  It would have been impossible in a two hour movie, right? This is a two hour and 15 minute movie and it's a, it's a sprawling novel that covers 70 years. So it's a really big book.

• 16:47Sean Fennessey?

  I think you can go too far with an adaptation too, or maybe not, maybe just too wrong. And there, there's something about the choices that she's making in order to make the kind of movie that she wants to make, which is obviously a story of epic desire and sex and

• 17:02Sean Fennessey?

  You know, a tragic romance. That's the thing that she really wants to make. And she does make that here in this movie. But that isn't really what Wuthering Heights is. It's like, it is much more loaded.

• 17:12Speaker 05

  It's not a love story. It's a revenge story.

• 17:13Sean Fennessey?

  It's a revenge story. And it's about like resentment and class warfare. And kind of like cultural frustration, like the lack of understanding between people. And also.

• 17:24Amanda Dobbins?

  And ownership and property and like, who gets which house?

• 17:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 17:28Sean Fennessey?

  And this movie is not really about any of that stuff. Like it doesn't, it kind of like, it glances at it, but it doesn't.

• 17:34Speaker 05

  It removes characters that would have made those points more clear. The biggest difference between Fennell's version and the book and most other versions is that she loses the mean brother.

• 17:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 17:45Speaker 05

  The mean brother is the source of a lot of the conflict and the motivation for Heathcliff to be a jerk the rest of the book and film. So you, like, you can't make it a revenge story once the brother is gone.

• 18:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think it's worth putting some context around that.

• 18:02Speaker 05

  Sorry.

• 18:02Sean Fennessey?

  In the novel, there's a father figure in the film. The father figure represents essentially the entire Earnshaw family. He is the person who brings Heathcliff into this home, introduces him to his entire family, especially his daughter Catherine. In the novel, the father brings that character home, but it's the brother who becomes kind of the rival and the person who makes Heathcliff feel less.

• 18:24Speaker 05

  And antagonizes him.

• 18:24Sean Fennessey?

  And eventually he sort of enslaves him.

• 18:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. Also, just in the novel, there are like heavy implications that Heathcliff is being brought home because he is the like bastard child of Mr. Litten. There is, I mean.

• 18:38Sean Fennessey?

  There's an insinuation.

• 18:39Amanda Dobbins?

  There's an insinuation. And I think like, in that time, in, it just sort of would have been questions of like, hmm, I guess I'm assuming that this is, now you're responsible for this kid. So, but also, so then the rivalry between the two brothers is also hinting at like, this, this brother understands him as a threat because he is his half brother.

• 19:02Speaker 05

  Yeah. And like that creates so much of the tension.

• 19:04Sean Fennessey?

  Totally. It helps explain Heathcliff's psychology, which is that he feels like he's been made to feel less than.

• 19:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 19:11Sean Fennessey?

  And then that makes you understand his, not just his desire for Catherine, but the kind of impossibility of Catherine and Heathcliff.

• 19:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. Also, they're.

• 19:17Sean Fennessey?

  Which is a great idea.

• 19:18Amanda Dobbins?

  They're half.

• 19:19Sean Fennessey?

  And they're sort of related. Yes. And maybe actually related.

• 19:22Speaker 05

  Oh, snap.

• 19:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 19:24Speaker 05

  That would have been interesting in the movie.

• 19:25Amanda Dobbins?

  There is also part of this, which is, and. There is a lot, they say brother and sister a lot in the first 15 minutes of the movie, where I'm like, I guess you were maybe trying to hint at this.

• 19:38Sean Fennessey?

  It has that Game of Thrones, you know, incest, incest kink thing that they're trying to, she's kind of like nodding at it, but she's not really going for it. And that's kind of, to me, a failure of them, maybe in general.

• 19:47Speaker 05

  I missed that, I missed that point.

• 19:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 19:49Speaker 05

  Oh, damn.

• 19:49Sean Fennessey?

  So anyway, you're right, but you're right, removing the brother.

• 19:52Speaker 05

  It changes the whole plot.

• 19:53Sean Fennessey?

  Removing the perspective of the book, I think, is really important, too, because the first part of the book is essentially a lodger comes to stay at Wuthering Heights, or is it to stay at the Linton, is to stay at the Linton?

• 20:03Amanda Dobbins?

  The Grange, is that what it's called?

• 20:05Sean Fennessey?

  Across the Ross Grange.

• 20:08Sean Fennessey?

  And that is where the Linton estate was, and it's many years in the future. And this lodger comes and discovers a diary, and he starts to learn about Catherine and Heathcliff. And then he thinks he sees Catherine's ghost. And then that is like the launchpad into the story. So we're starting in the distant future.

• 20:26Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 20:26Sean Fennessey?

  And then we're going back, and Nellie, the handmaiden, tells the story.

• 20:31Speaker 05

  She's a narrator, yeah.

• 20:32Sean Fennessey?

  And we're meant to understand her, as you said, as an unreliable narrator. She's a person who has her own motivations and her own interests. She's in the movie, and she does stuff in the movie.

• 20:40Speaker 05

  She does.

• 20:40Sean Fennessey?

  But it's not from her perspective.

• 20:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's not from perspective, but I found myself leaving the movie the most upset with Nellie. Because I felt like she was just getting involved too much and making shit strange. I don't want to say more and spoil it, but I found that a lot of movement that would have gone to the brother, had he been there, kind of had to go to Nellie.

• 21:04Sean Fennessey?

  I agree.

• 21:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 21:05Sean Fennessey?

  It is, it's, it's an interesting choice of adaptation, and I know why she did it. And she made the movie that she wanted to make.

• 21:10Speaker 05

  You know why she did it, because I don't.

• 21:12Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I think she felt like she wanted to spend more time with Catherine and Heathcliff. That like the, the sort of, the people that were orbiting them were of less interest to her. And there's just a lot more of these two characters together, as far as I can tell, in any of the adaptations, and at least in the novel, based on what I've read.

• 21:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 21:29Sean Fennessey?

  So she, she wanted to make Romeo and Juliet. She wanted to make a movie where these two people are kind of desperately coming together over and over again. And it's against other people's wills, but they don't, those people don't matter.

• 21:38Amanda Dobbins?

  She has another character in the movie who is the best character played by, or the best performance by Alison Oliver.

• 21:46Sean Fennessey?

  Isabel, I guess.

• 21:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Retell the story of Romeo and Juliet. So, which, you know, is clearly a signal post. It was like, if that's what's going on here, people are getting in the way. Yeah, she's great. She's really good.

• 21:57Sean Fennessey?

  That was great.

• 21:58Amanda Dobbins?

  But.

• 21:58Sean Fennessey?

  She also was in Saltburn, one of the best things in Saltburn as well.

• 22:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 22:01Sean Fennessey?

  I was in Oliver.

• 22:02Amanda Dobbins?

  But, and, and it is true that the, like, the baddie women's side characters are the best parts of Emerald Fennell book, uh, movies. See also Carey Mulligan in Saltburn.

• 22:13Amanda Dobbins?

  But that, that was just confusing to me because Romeo and Juliet's like very different from Wuthering Heights and I, excuse me, I have read the book and I guess I'm not devoted to it. So I was not particularly concerned with this as a, as a faithful adaptation. I'm still really riding my like train dreams wave of, you know, if you don't, if you don't bring the expectations, then, you know, magic can happen. But I just, I don't understand what, you can't use the puzzle pieces of Wuthering Heights to make Romeo and Juliet. And it just, and I just, I watched it and it didn't, they didn't fit together for me on its, on its face.

• 22:58Sean Fennessey?

  But I, I think the question, I think you can, if you do it better. I think the challenge here is that I'm not like a, I'm not a loyalist when it comes to faithfully adapting a novel. I don't think you absolutely have to do everything intended. In fact, I think you can distort theme based on the time period that you're in and change the meaning of it. I just think the meaning here is meant to be one thing, which is that we live in a more highly sexualized world where we can more confidently talk about what we want and how we want it. But then the movie doesn't really live up to that idea. It doesn't really give us a movie that, that truly adequately, I think portrays that idea. So the thing that she's going for, she doesn't get, and in the process, she kind of breaks Wuthering Heights over her knee.

• 23:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 23:43Speaker 05

  Why'd you break Wuthering Heights to not make the movie you think you want to make? Well, and I think what viewers have kind of been promised in the run up to this film's release was that, oh, it's sexy, it's kinky, it's Emerald Fennell. And then at every moment when this film is supposed to be sexy and erotic, I found it gimmicky and too much.

• 24:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 24:03Speaker 05

  So you should talk about that.

• 24:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well, I think that there is, there's, there's the foreplay section of the novel, of the, of the film, and then there's once they actually consummate their affair, which we should know doesn't happen in the book. And it's like, it's not Henry Miller, okay? Like, like no one is fucking in Wuthering Heights, the book.

• 24:24Speaker 05

  It's the book of yearning, that's the whole thing.

• 24:26Amanda Dobbins?

  And also, and also, it's been pointed out that like Emily Bronte has probably never actually, probably did not have sex in her life, just based on what we know biographically. Listen, it was a tough time for a lot of people.

• 24:40Amanda Dobbins?

  You don't want to be, you don't want to be a lot of things in 1847, but like, an unmarried woman like living in Yorkshire is like on the list.

• 24:47Speaker 05

  That's why you write Wuthering Heights. What the fuck else are you doing?

• 24:51Amanda Dobbins?

  But so, and, and also, and she had a wild imagination in a lot of ways, but I don't think adventure is towards like actual sex.

• 24:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:58Amanda Dobbins?

  So, putting aside the consummation, everything ahead of time is like that classic Emerald Fennell, like sex is like, is very viscous and gross.

• 25:10Speaker 05

  Viscous is the word. The slug, the bread.

• 25:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, the eggs, the, even like, the, the wall of her bedroom slash boudoir is like supposed to be skin of her face, but also, you know, looks like what skin that you kind of can like, that's great, great production design. Where it gets pushed, it's like sort of dimpled. But yeah, it's like really like ooey, gooey, gross, very memorable. She has a way with it, just like the bathtub stage.

• 25:39Speaker 05

  But it doesn't turn me on. It doesn't turn me on.

• 25:42Amanda Dobbins?

  It's scary, it's like, she is better portraying sex as like, like.

• 25:48Amanda Dobbins?

  You have sex and you die is, you know, something that a lot of women of my generation were taught and also like clearly a motif in, in her movies.

• 25:56Sean Fennessey?

  All three of her movies.

• 25:57Amanda Dobbins?

  And that, and, and so she's portraying the idea of it, like she's very creative, very visually imaginative and can portray sex as not like sexy, but as like the evil around the corner.

• 26:10Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 26:10Amanda Dobbins?

  But when you get to the actual sex, I was like, this is pretty boring.

• 26:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Let's, let's talk about that because there are, it's not just like two or three, you know, visual representations of that gooey-ness that you're talking about. There's like 10 or 12.

• 26:22Speaker 05

  The eggs show up several times.

• 26:24Sean Fennessey?

  The eggs cracked underneath the bed, you know, you mentioned the scarred back and the scarred back, it's not just that it's a scarred back, but it's a sweating scarred back, which is almost meant to, there's something.

• 26:32Speaker 05

  Supposed to be hot and I'm like, girl, it's not.

• 26:35Sean Fennessey?

  Kind of interestingly like dangerously kinky going on there, but she doesn't really explore it. She just shows us an image and makes us think about it a little bit.

• 26:41Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 26:42Sean Fennessey?

  Um, you know, the movie opens also with this groaning sound and that, and, and the groaning sound, we think is a man masturbating, maybe climaxing. And in fact, it's a guy who's being hanged and his neck is not broken and he's just choking.

• 26:57Speaker 05

  I had forgotten that, you're right.

• 26:58Sean Fennessey?

  Which is another kind of like, we're bringing you to the edge of climax. And this is a movie that basically does that. Like it keeps trying to get you to get off, but then when they do have sex, they're just fully clothed, you know?

• 27:10Speaker 05

  Then you're like pulled up by the corset or something. It's just.

• 27:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I like that image.

• 27:14Speaker 05

  Not physically possible.

• 27:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah, that was a bit strange.

• 27:17Speaker 05

  But interesting image.

• 27:18Sean Fennessey?

  But like, there's no nudity in this movie and I don't need it to be pornography, but like if you're gonna, if you're gonna break the text and you're gonna redefine what Wuthering Heights is.

• 27:27Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 27:28Sean Fennessey?

  And you're gonna cast Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie.

• 27:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 27:30Sean Fennessey?

  They're just gonna be fully clothed in three sex scenes?

• 27:33Amanda Dobbins?

  He takes his shirt off.

• 27:34Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 27:34Amanda Dobbins?

  And you'd like, you do notice that.

• 27:36Sean Fennessey?

  You remember that part.

• 27:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I do because I was like, there's a bicep because there's also, I mean, we can talk, we'll talk about their performances, but there's like not a lot of chemistry behind that, between them.

• 27:44Speaker 05

  He was sexier than Frankenstein.

• 27:46Amanda Dobbins?

  And he, what, he is kind of also doing Frankenstein for the first half of the movie.

• 27:50Sean Fennessey?

  A little bit.

• 27:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Um, but there's not a lot of heat between them. The blocking is sort of unimaginative. They're just like in a dining room.

• 27:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:59Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, it's, it's, it's, it's not there and like. Maybe, maybe, if you want to be generous, there's an argument that it's like, that's the point, that, you know, the consummation is the, is like, is the letdown and this is a movie about desire.

• 28:14Sean Fennessey?

  That's not what the movie tells us.

• 28:16Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not. I agree. I was, like I said, I don't, I don't think it gets there.

• 28:19Sean Fennessey?

  I think that would have been a really interesting way to tell the story, but they, they are into it for each other. We're just not really as into it when we're watching it, or at least we weren't. I mean, I think,

• 28:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:28Sean Fennessey?

  people are really gonna like this movie, I think, and I, I wanted to talk a little bit about that, which is sort of like, what is happening culturally and why a movie like this is so anticipated? Because you mentioned you watched Heated Rivalry.

• 28:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 28:39Sean Fennessey?

  And romanticy is the most reliable thing at the Barnes and Noble around the corner from your home right now. And we've been talking about Colleen Hoover movie adaptations for the last 12 months. What do you think is like?

• 28:53Speaker 05

  People are horny again, and I like that.

• 28:54Sean Fennessey?

  Why do you think that is?

• 28:55Speaker 05

  I think, you know, there was a moment, and it was much covered, that the MCU and Marvel and the superheroification of movies made movies and TVs a bit more sexless. I think we've turned the corner on that, and now it's sexy again, and people want to see sex, and they're unashamed to see it on screen. And so in that moment, when you see Heated Rivalry work, because there's fucking.

• 29:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 29:20Speaker 05

  And you see in Pillyad, it works because there's fucking.

• 29:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 29:25Speaker 05

  It's so weird to see Emerald Fennell in that moment.

• 29:28Amanda Dobbins?

  We're gonna talk about what's missing from those two films.

• 29:30Speaker 05

  Yes, yes. I also, it's like, I've been trying to figure out what motivates Emerald Fennell to make this kind of movie, and to do sex this way, and to do pain this way, and to do pleasure this way. I found this one podcast where she was talking about her motivation to get into film. She talked about how when she was seven years old, she goes to see Jurassic Park with her family while they're on holiday in America. It gets to the scene where the raptors come into the kitchen. It scares her so much, it's so visceral for her, she throws up in the theater.

• 30:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:02Speaker 05

  But she stays, and she keeps watching, and she tells her parents, "I'm staying." And it's like, oh, that's your kink. You want it to kind of hurt a little bit. You want the pain, you want the suffer, and that is your philosophy of sex on screen? It is not mine. It's not mine.

• 30:19Sean Fennessey?

  It's not mine either, but I want an artist who's willing to do that.

• 30:25Speaker 05

  And she commits to it.

• 30:25Sean Fennessey?

  Like, I'm interested in that.

• 30:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:27Sean Fennessey?

  Let me just, last night I had a very interesting experience. I went to the New Beverly for a double feature. Double feature was a famous Japanese film called In the Realm of the Senses, which is a similar, different, but similarly sensational movie about a doomed couple who are obsessed with each other and have sex. The reason the movie is famous is because all of the sex scenes are unsimulated. So it is effectively art house pornography. And it is very dramatic and intense. And all month this month at the New Beverly, they're showing kind of erotic cinema as, to pay tribute to the theater's history, when it used to be basically a porno theater for a few years. And then it was doubled with this movie Blood's Battered Bride, which is like just a cult movie that is fun.

• 31:09Sean Fennessey?

  But watching In the Realm of the Senses, which is, there's nothing like it. Because it's Nagisa Oshima, so it's like a real master filmmaker making pornography.

• 31:19Sean Fennessey?

  That is transgression. That's pain for pleasure. Like that, and I know that Warner Brothers is never gonna make In the Realm of the Senses, and I'm not saying that she should, and it's not a standard that I want to hold her to, but it feels like she really comes up short on that idea so many times that it makes you wonder like, what's, what, maybe it's just that that's her taste, is like, the 30% of BDSM that she's into?

• 31:42Speaker 05

  It's funny, like, you mentioned the word edging. It's hard to be frank here. The point of edging is that eventually you get off. This film never gets off.

• 31:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 31:53Speaker 05

  It never gets off. And you tease it, you're kneading the bread and it's fucking, the snail is sliming and it's fucking, and it's like, everything is like, the eggs are fucking, and then no one fucks and no one resolves, and it's like, damn it.

• 32:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 32:05Speaker 05

  Damn it.

• 32:06Sean Fennessey?

  And in the Realm of the Senses, we literally see human ejaculate. Like, there's nothing even close to that metaphorical here.

• 32:13Speaker 05

  They fuck.

• 32:14Amanda Dobbins?

  They do, they do, they do. They, like, a lot.

• 32:17Speaker 05

  A lot.

• 32:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, you never see dick, which we'll talk about, but.

• 32:20Sean Fennessey?

  Season two, there's still time.

• 32:23Amanda Dobbins?

  But, I mean, the thing is, is that, like, you're both right, that in terms of, like, I guess emotionally, or like, the tone of the film, she like, never gets off, but she's still does have to shoot sex scenes. And that's kind of the problem, is that like, both the text and you can tell, like, her interest and what, or what she finds sexy is in, is in the foreplay, is in the restraint, is in the, is like, is in the punishment, is in the, is in the longing, is in the it not happening.

• 32:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:55Amanda Dobbins?

  But then, this, this adaptation, because of like, the pop cultural moment, has to add a lot of sex.

• 33:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:03Amanda Dobbins?

  And it's not there. It's not there in the filmmaking, it's not there in the chemistry. It's like, the story, I guess, you know, it, it's fine, but it, it is also one of those things where the puzzle pieces of, of what they've laid up, it's like, I guess, like, they could have sex for a while and it's fine. Even that, she's like, she was like, I'm pregnant, but I'm not gonna tell him, but we're not, then paternity doesn't become an issue at any point. It was very weird.

• 33:27Speaker 05

  It's, not to keep mentioning her on this podcast, but I want, it was a TCM podcast, Talking Pictures.

• 33:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:34Speaker 05

  She was talking about her, her philosophy of film. And besides that whole Jurassic Park story, which explains everything, she also at one point was like, I don't like happy movies. I don't like movies that just like, hold your hand. I want a movie to like, kick you and scratch you.

• 33:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 33:46Sean Fennessey?

  That's my favorite thing.

• 33:47Speaker 05

  It's not my favorite thing.

• 33:48Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, but see, I, I love that, and I don't think that she really pulls that off. That's my, my-

• 33:52Speaker 05

  That's the thing. It's like, if you're gonna do it, do it all the way that way.

• 33:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 33:56Speaker 05

  This one is trying to toe both, yeah, toe the line.

• 33:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I think, I think a lot of it is around resolution in her films, you know, like, Promising Woman, Young Woman, I watched the first time and I was like, this is a pretty interesting exploration of, it's like a rape revenge movie-

• 34:09Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 34:09Sean Fennessey?

  -for the 2020s, post Me Too.

• 34:11Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 34:12Sean Fennessey?

  Toxic masculinity, like, there should be modern set movies about this. I thought she totally like, spit the bit in the last 10 minutes, where she was like, actually, we do need the cops to help arrest people. And it was like, the whole point was that the police weren't listening to the people who were saying that they had been victimized or, or assaulted. Anyway, um, so that doesn't make sense. Saltburn- The last 10 minutes, I find like incoherent. I'm like, is it because he felt like he was like a lower class and so he had to destroy them? Was it because he was queer and he wasn't able to communicate about that? Like, was he just a sociopath? Like, what?

• 34:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:46Sean Fennessey?

  No explanation.

• 34:47Speaker 05

  She also handled race really strangely in that film. Like, there was one biracial character who's also gay and you get that he's supposed to be performing some version of blackness and queerness, but it all felt like it was tacked on.

• 35:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 35:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 35:00Speaker 05

  She also strikes me as a filmmaker.

• 35:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Here's your one. Here are like all your things in one issue.

• 35:04Speaker 05

  Yeah. She strikes me as a filmmaker and this is no harm, no foul, no shade. She feels most comfortable in a sandbox that is pretty white. And I'm not mad at that. Do your thing.

• 35:15Sean Fennessey?

  It is her right to do that.

• 35:16Speaker 05

  It is her right.

• 35:16Sean Fennessey?

  I actually don't want her writing a black or Indian heathcliff if she doesn't know how to do it. You know?

• 35:22Speaker 05

  Now, that said.

• 35:23Sean Fennessey?

  You don't want that?

• 35:23Speaker 05

  She could work with other writers and figure it out.

• 35:25Sean Fennessey?

  That's true.

• 35:25Speaker 05

  But we're also in this moment of like singular talents that do it all themselves.

• 35:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 35:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. Or you could just adapt a different novel that is like more in line with what you're talking about. Like, just make Romeo and Juliet. It's fine. There have been a lot of those.

• 35:39Speaker 05

  Or just write a whole fresh new love story that is taking bits of what you liked reading growing up and make a brand new thing that is not weighed down by the expectations of such an iconic piece of IP. Like, there's so much expectation sitting over Fennell's film that even if she did it 25, 30% better, we'd still be, you know, taking kicks at it.

• 36:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, Sue, I want to, I put this question in the doc, but like I want to ask you this. I, is she making a movie? Does she think that this movie is like romantic or sexy? Or like, is she exploring like, you know, a tragic love story in this? Does she think that these, or is this total provocation? And is it like not quite satire, but is the whole thing tongue in cheek? Like, I, as a genuine question, I can't tell what the intention of the movie's like tone and emotions are.

• 36:40Sean Fennessey?

  Well, we should note that the- The title of the film is, in quotation marks, Wuthering Heights. Which is so annoying. It's a little like first year college creative writing, you know?

• 36:52Sean Fennessey?

  But I do understand what she intends by that, which is like, she is saying that I'm gonna do something different. And then this is like a text that many people know and understand, and this is what I take from it and what I am interested in. I think that the question is a little bit, the answer to the question that you're asking is a little bit confused by a couple of other choices. Like, in addition to some of that production design, like you've got these completely like ahistorical, anachronistic costume designs. Which is my favorite part of the movie. Which are really, really good. They're amazing. They're so great. But they're like made of cellophane and plastic and materials that you just wouldn't find in that kind of costume. Which is not a bad thing, but it is a choice that also puts the quotation mark around the movie. You've also got this score by Charli XCX. Which I kind of liked. When it first appears, I'm really into it.

• 37:37Sean Fennessey?

  It is interesting. And then, but that does kind of lead me to where my head is with her in general as a filmmaker, which is, the movie I think is at its best when it's in montage and is a music video. I was gonna say, she's a music video director. She's a music video director. And the filmmaker that she most reminds me of and that she really feels like the spiritual heir to is Baz Luhrmann. Now, some people love Baz Luhrmann. I don't. And I really like his Romeo and Juliet, and that's pretty much where it stops for me, because I felt like he made the ultimate music video adaptation in Romeo and Juliet. Where it's like the cutting style, the color, the recreation of that world I thought was so inventive and cool.

• 38:16Sean Fennessey?

  And then I just felt like he kept sputtering. Now, I'm kind of on the outside. A lot of people love his movies. They love Moulin Rouge, they love Gatsby, they love, they even love his Elvis. I didn't really care for any of those movies, but they, they hit a similar note to me, which is like, but they, they put so much time and effort into all the stuff, the way things look and the way that they feel, but the idea is like, feels very barren. But here's the difference between Baz Luhrmann and Emile Fennell.

• 38:41Speaker 05

  At least with this movie.

• 38:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 38:42Speaker 05

  Baz Luhrmann at some point is gonna have fun.

• 38:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 38:45Speaker 05

  He has fun, Romeo and Juliet, even though it is a tragedy.

• 38:48Sean Fennessey?

  It's true.

• 38:49Speaker 05

  No part of Her Wuthering Heights felt fun to me.

• 38:53Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm.

• 38:54Speaker 05

  I don't know, did it, did it even feel fun to you?

• 38:55Amanda Dobbins?

  No, and I also didn't think it was funny. Uh, there's a-

• 38:59Speaker 05

  I think she thought it was funny in some parts.

• 39:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I do as well, and I, there's like, the, the Kathy character in particular was really annoying. Uh, and-

• 39:07Speaker 05

  What was your take on the bark like a dog scene? It threw me for a loop and I was like, where's this coming from?

• 39:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I just, like, the, there's, I, she's trying to do, like, plucky, independent, you know? There's like a little bit of, like, girl power-

• 39:20Speaker 05

  Mmm.

• 39:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Running, or, or girl boss, running through it, that, that I don't care for. And then I think, like, Margot Robbie's bringing a little bit too much Barbie to the performance, at least when she's trying to do comedy. And, I mean, comedy is very hard to do, and, and if you just don't get the tone right, then-

• 39:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 39:36Amanda Dobbins?

  It doesn't, it doesn't communicate, but like, it was not fun, and I also, I did not laugh.

• 39:42Speaker 05

  Also, the, the scenery and the imagery and the lighting doesn't lend itself to comedy. I found it to be a very dark and dim film, which was wild because the costumes are so great, the rooms are so beautiful, and it was hard to see some of it.

• 39:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I-

• 39:57Speaker 05

  It was weird to me.

• 39:58Amanda Dobbins?

  So let's talk about this, because you have informed me that this was shot on 35mm in Vista Vision. We did not see it on film?

• 40:05Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. I don't know how they projected it in the room we saw it in.

• 40:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and I-

• 40:09Speaker 05

  We all saw it together, we should say.

• 40:10Sean Fennessey?

  We did together.

• 40:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I don't, I don't think that we, I don't know if we saw it on Vista Vision, but like, what's going on? With, with how it looks?

• 40:15Speaker 05

  It was giving Frankenstein, it's like, the darkness of that.

• 40:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, like, the darkness, and also, you know, there's so much effort put into the costumes and the production designs on these films, and it's like intricate and ornate, and then there's something about the lighting, or the way it's shot, or the way it's being projected, where it looks like strangely flat, I'm like, I'm sorry-

• 40:38Speaker 05

  It didn't work.

• 40:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Wuthering Heights looked like a flip, like, you know, like in Echo Park, like the, you know, like, modern farmhouse or whatever, like, what are we doing?

• 40:46Speaker 05

  Not an Echo Park clip.

• 40:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I, you know, I said to you when we walked out that you can, and this is not, um- We all wear makeup, or I wear makeup, I'm wearing it right now. So, wearing makeup is cool, but you can see Margot Robbie's makeup. And not in a, like, she's getting sick, spoiler alert, and so you're-

• 41:05Sean Fennessey?

  Or in the Marie Antoinette way, where it's sort of like this purposeful-

• 41:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 41:08Sean Fennessey?

  Showy-

• 41:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 41:09Sean Fennessey?

  You know, like a demonstration of class.

• 41:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, you can see the powder, like, sitting up, like, on the skin at certain points. And that's not a fault of makeup application. That's, I have been noticing this on, like, more and more, honestly, like, a lot of, like, Netflix streaming shows.

• 41:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 41:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Where I think there's just something about, like, what is it? Like, what are we not calibrating? Where, like, the texture, because I think it really takes away from-

• 41:37Sean Fennessey?

  It does.

• 41:37Amanda Dobbins?

  The visual achievement of this film. I did not think that this looked that good.

• 41:42Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:42Speaker 05

  Which is wild, because the costumes are so great.

• 41:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 41:44Speaker 05

  It was like a waste of opportunity.

• 41:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Those veils, when she's, anytime they're outside, anytime they're on the wars, and the, and the wind's going-

• 41:50Speaker 05

  Oh, my god.

• 41:50Amanda Dobbins?

  And the veil is framing Margot Robbie's-

• 41:52Speaker 05

  Or like, the red dress that goes into the red floor in the room with the fireplace made of plaster hands. Like that better, it's gorgeous.

• 41:59Amanda Dobbins?

  And like, when they're using color in the right way, it looks amazing. But you mentioned music videos, and the, that there's like, one montage, when like, Margot Robbie's like, now, you know, now I'm rich. And now I'm, like, now I'm doing my girl boss thing.

• 42:13Sean Fennessey?

  My name's Linton now.

• 42:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Woo! And, and they've cut it to a, and it, it is a, a music video. And I said to Sean afterwards that he wouldn't understand the reference, but like, that is literally what a Taylor Swift video looks like. In, like, theme, and I, and I don't say that as a compliment, even though I do enjoy the, the music of Taylor Swift when it is edited. So, I, I don't know, well, I, I don't understand why this doesn't look good.

• 42:39Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, like, the movie is shot by Lena Sangren. He, you can make the case he's one of the five or 10 most interesting cinematographers in the world. These are the movies he's made recently: La La Land, First Man, No Time To Die, Don't Look Up, Babylon, Saltburn, and Wuthering Heights. He's shooting Dune Part III right now. He's replacing Greg Fraser to shoot Dune Part III. He is a heavyweight cinematographer.

• 42:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:58Sean Fennessey?

  I also don't think this film looks very good. I don't know why, I don't really understand, um, the lighting that you're discussing. I think I also, I think that there's an idea that is inherent in the story, and also that, I think Emerald Fennell's trying to, like, explode in the movie, which is- The colorful lavishness of high class and the dinginess of low class. But I feel like she's brought the same lighting rig from the dingy part to the beautiful part.

• 43:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 43:25Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 43:26Sean Fennessey?

  And if that were an idea along the lines of the one that you were describing where it's like the sex is the bad part, actually. It's like the letdown that maybe there's something to that, but there's, I, I find it hard to believe that that was the intention to make like the garishness not appealing. Garishness is the point. I mean, that's really what she does now. Saltburn is, is very similarly kind of constructed.

• 43:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 43:45Sean Fennessey?

  That home, that estate is meant to be sort of ridiculous in its opulence. It just doesn't, it's not appealing.

• 43:52Amanda Dobbins?

  It works more in Saltburn. I, I do wonder whether time periods is a part of it.

• 43:56Speaker 05

  Better lit. I, I remember.

• 43:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, yeah, but a lot of it's like outside, like the M G M G part is, you know, again.

• 44:03Sean Fennessey?

  The music video.

• 44:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Once again, shoot outside for the love of God. Just, you know, if you kick a lighting rig.

• 44:08Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, that's a, that's something she does well. Like, and like you said, on the moors in this film, that's some of the best stuff. When she, when, when Catherine goes outside and, and begins masturbating privately in front of the, the winds. And then is discovered by Heathcliff and then they have their sort of like that conversation. That was the only time in the movie when I was like, I'm really locked in. Like where is this going to go now? Because now we have reached this kind of critical confrontation between how will she change this book into this movie? And you get that moment. He lifts her by the harness. She's, he, he, he, does he put her hands in his mouth or does he just smell them? I care. I think he puts them in his mouth and you're like, okay.

• 44:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 44:45Sean Fennessey?

  You're going for it.

• 44:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 44:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 44:46Sean Fennessey?

  Keep going.

• 44:47Speaker 05

  Keep going.

• 44:47Sean Fennessey?

  Keep going.

• 44:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 44:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, but I mean, that's sort of the problem. Like that moment before you keep going is what she's really good at.

• 44:54Speaker 05

  She's good at the edging. You never get off.

• 44:56Amanda Dobbins?

  But she keeps going.

• 44:57Speaker 05

  You never get off.

• 44:58Amanda Dobbins?

  And, and then that becomes a problem.

• 45:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 45:01Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, which is, which like in a more interesting filmmaker's hands, like could be interesting, right? But I don't think it's thinking about it in those terms.

• 45:11Speaker 05

  Pillion gets off. Pillion is just as visceral, just as like the sex is, is painful and weird as well. But they get off.

• 45:22Sean Fennessey?

  I think there's something interesting about how there's an attempt to. Line up the power dynamics between Catherine and Heathcliff. Whereas I think in the novel, it's meant to always be uneven. Where for the longest time Catherine holds all the power and then Heathcliff grabs the power with both his wealth.

• 45:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 45:39Sean Fennessey?

  To sort of like, we should say in the novel, the brother character who's excised from this adaptation. Eventually becomes the owner of Wuthering Heights and he's an alcoholic and he has debts. And so Heathcliff buys the estate from him. And then later in the novel, he dies and his like, the way in which Heathcliff rises socially.

• 45:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 45:59Sean Fennessey?

  Romantically.

• 46:00Speaker 05

  It's revenge, manipulation. Also, this movie never gives Heathcliff enough time to do all of that.

• 46:06Sean Fennessey?

  That's a five minute period in the movie after he has married Isabella and kind of made her his sex slave. And so you don't really get any of that psychology that comes across in the other adaptations.

• 46:17Amanda Dobbins?

  You do also get that the Isabella character in this movie kind of likes the sex slave stuff.

• 46:22Sean Fennessey?

  Which I kind of enjoyed.

• 46:23Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't mind either.

• 46:24Speaker 05

  You like the dog barking?

• 46:26Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I just think it's, it was a, to me, that was a clever twist because making Heathcliff so strapping and striking. You almost need to like, you need to literalize that in the movie. And the fact that Isabella can't control herself around him, that she's like, oh my God.

• 46:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:41Sean Fennessey?

  I need this. I think makes the Catherine and Heathcliff experience a little bit more legible.

• 46:47Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 46:47Sean Fennessey?

  And also Alison Oliver's just funny. She's just fun to watch, you know? She has a presence that is amusing and cuts through a lot of that grimness that you were talking about. But let's talk about Elordi and Margot Robbie before we get into Pilly and Foley.

• 46:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 46:59Sean Fennessey?

  Um.

• 47:02Sean Fennessey?

  I think they're both miscast.

• 47:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 47:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 47:06Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think their performances are bad.

• 47:07Speaker 05

  Well, in the book, she's like a dark haired teenager, right?

• 47:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Margot Robbie's 35.

• 47:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 47:12Sean Fennessey?

  And.

• 47:13Speaker 05

  Because they're teens in the book.

• 47:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 47:15Speaker 05

  When the main action is happening.

• 47:16Sean Fennessey?

  And I don't know what the exact age is when they start to, when they, as they're getting a little bit older and she marries Linton. But presumably at this time in history, she's not marrying Linton at 32.

• 47:25Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, no, it's younger and then I think.

• 47:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I mean, I think it all wraps up before 30. I don't know. It's for me, it wasn't age that necessarily, though I do think like that younger people communicate like an abandon and a sense of just

• 47:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that was what I was thinking.

• 47:45Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, irrational behavior. Sorry to everyone in the booth.

• 47:49Sean Fennessey?

  The most rational person here today is Jack.

• 47:52Amanda Dobbins?

  That would that would make more sense or explain just kind of like these these people are wilding. But I just thought it was more. I thought it was like decisions of how they're interpreting the characters. And again, like, I really chafed on that, like, very competent, bossy. I'm doing what I want version of of Kathy. That the transition into like, I just couldn't help myself was never really developed for me. I like, I don't think Margot Robbie can like pulled that off. And then a lordy is doing Frankenstein for the first half, as we said.

• 48:33Sean Fennessey?

  Very monosyllabic, very physical, lurching a lot.

• 48:37Amanda Dobbins?

  And he is definitely brooding and his his size and just general heft is overwhelming and like maybe like a little threatening, but he's I'd find his like bad boy ness to be a different quality than

• 49:00Amanda Dobbins?

  what I would imagine a Heathcliff to be, which is he's very he's controlled. And there is something that is supposed to be uncontrolled about what all these people are doing. And these are two very controlled performances. And so the sex scenes also like never reached that abandon that you're supposed to.

• 49:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know what they require.

• 49:23Speaker 05

  I keep thinking about the Laurence Lavier version of this movie, which I think was great. And yeah, he gets to kind of lose control and his rage and his revenge is just so much more fully embodied than a lordy could do, but that's half a lordy's fault and half of the problem is like you don't give him enough script to do any of that. His role is so minimized. But I think my biggest issue was with Margot Robbie, not because I hate Margot Robbie, but because I love her.

• 49:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 49:54Speaker 05

  And whenever I see her on a screen, I'm just like, I want you to be a fun hero and I'm rooting for you.

• 49:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 49:59Speaker 05

  I'm rooting for you.

• 50:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 50:00Speaker 05

  And this is not the kind of movie.

• 50:02Sean Fennessey?

  She has like a Tom Hanks-y quality.

• 50:04Speaker 05

  There you go.

• 50:04Sean Fennessey?

  You can't play the villain.

• 50:05Speaker 05

  They can't.

• 50:06Sean Fennessey?

  Catherine is kind of the villain of the story.

• 50:07Speaker 05

  She's a hero. Margot Robbie at all times, I want her to be like guiding me towards happiness.

• 50:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 50:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Is she the like, I mean, she is in the book, but again, I'd like this movie casts her as someone who, you know, kind of gets thrown over by her, her, you know, paid friend, her maid.

• 50:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 50:27Amanda Dobbins?

  And then she gets pregnant and like dies slowly and, and then, and then at the end.

• 50:32Speaker 05

  Big bleed out.

• 50:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 50:33Speaker 05

  Oh, my God. Sorry.

• 50:34Amanda Dobbins?

  And then at the end, she's really sad because it's, and it's really sad because they were like friends as children.

• 50:40Sean Fennessey?

  The villain is, is way oversimplified, but I think one of the things that at least you see in the adaptations is that she is this representation of the failures of class, that she makes bad choices because the selfishness that is ingrained in her by her upbringing forces her away from her true passion and into a life that is like an imprisonment. And she never gets to truly express herself. And then she takes it out on Heathcliff and he feels worse and he seeks revenge on her because of that unwillingness to acknowledge their true love. That makes her kind of the aggressor in the story. And Margot, I totally agree with you. Margot Robbie is just winning. Like she's just somebody that you just want to hang out with and you are rooting for her. She has a very classical Hollywood.

• 51:23Speaker 05

  It's giving a little Julia Roberts. Like I only want Julia Roberts to like end up happy.

• 51:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. And when Julia Roberts did stuff like this, like Mary Riley, it never worked.

• 51:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 51:31Sean Fennessey?

  She couldn't pull this stuff off and it's hard to do. Catherine Earnshaw is a little bit more of like a romantic, you know, desirous figure than Mary Riley is, um, who's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

• 51:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 51:42Sean Fennessey?

  Um, fascinating movie. But I, I think that they're both a little bit wrong for it. I don't, I don't think Heathcliff should be like 6'9". I mean, Jacob Elordi is enormous.

• 51:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:53Sean Fennessey?

  He, he is, I know, you're very happy about that.

• 51:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah. But also, we're, we're gonna talk about Pillion and you're just gonna talk about Alexander.

• 51:59Sean Fennessey?

  In that case, it works.

• 52:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, but it's just like the size, you know, it's powerful, you know?

• 52:04Sean Fennessey?

  It is powerful.

• 52:05Amanda Dobbins?

  These, these movies do understand that, at least. I, I agree, he was totally wrong for this part, but.

• 52:10Speaker 05

  But it's also like.

• 52:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I remain a fan.

• 52:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's like, I had two questions I asked myself leaving that movie. Well, first, I thought, my first thought was, great gowns, beautiful gowns.

• 52:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 52:20Speaker 05

  And then second, it's like, you know, critically, do I enjoy this film? Probably not for the most part, but is this movie going to do what it needs to do for the studio and for Emerald Fennell? Probably, yeah.

• 52:33Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, I think so, definitely.

• 52:34Speaker 05

  You've got Margot Robbie in there, you've got Charlie XCX in there, the trailer is hot. Like, all of the pieces are hot right now. And that will be enough to get butts in seat for a good opening weekend, I think.

• 52:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 52:47Speaker 05

  And that is what matters to the, to her, to her future, more than if I like this movie or not? Which makes me sad, but like, this movie will do fine.

• 52:54Sean Fennessey?

  It, I think it's gonna do very well.

• 52:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 52:56Sean Fennessey?

  Um.

• 52:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is good.

• 52:58Sean Fennessey?

  I, I think it's a great thing. I, you know, we, it's okay to not like a movie.

• 53:01Speaker 05

  People going to movies is great, period.

• 53:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 53:03Speaker 05

  Go to the theaters, we love it.

• 53:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I just didn't understand this movie, you know? Like, I was honestly like, what? I really, genuinely, spoiler alert, I guess, for the end, which is really just the halfway point of

• 53:14Sean Fennessey?

  Of the novel.

• 53:15Amanda Dobbins?

  A book that was written almost 200 years ago, that's been adapted 35 times. Um, that we know of, counting wise.

• 53:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 53:23Amanda Dobbins?

  The, so the last shot where it's a flashback to them as kids, and they're like, I'll love you forever. Is that sincere?

• 53:31Sean Fennessey?

  I think so.

• 53:33Speaker 05

  Is Emerald Fennell sincere?

• 53:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know.

• 53:36Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know.

• 53:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know.

• 53:38Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 53:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know.

• 53:39Sean Fennessey?

  Honestly, shout out to her, though.

• 53:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Then maybe that's interesting.

• 53:42Sean Fennessey?

  This has been a way more interesting conversation about a movie than we've had in a few weeks, for sure. Because she's definitely got something.

• 53:48Speaker 05

  You have to, yes.

• 53:49Sean Fennessey?

  Something, and I, I honestly, I personally, as a movie podcast host, need directors who have something.

• 53:55Speaker 05

  I will say that. And I will say, I had so much more fun listening to Emerald Fennell talk about her process on talking pictures than watching that movie.

• 54:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 54:04Speaker 05

  Her mind is brilliant. I like the way that she approaches her work with like. A vision and a point she's trying to make.

• 54:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 54:12Speaker 05

  I just don't think the point was made in this movie.

• 54:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I will say, if this movie looked better, I would like it a lot more. Some of what I'm holding against it is really just that the, the, the promised visual sumptuousness versus whatever is happening, which we just have to get down to the, like, we gotta solve this as a nation.

• 54:31Speaker 05

  I think if this wasn't a big studio film, it would have been better. And I think that what I enjoyed about Pillion was that it was small, indie, and it set no expectations for me as a viewer. It was a book I hadn't read. I didn't know it was, I didn't know what it was gonna be about. I just went in and said, okay, let's see it. Whereas this finale adaptation of Wuthering Heights has the expectation and burden of so much on it. Like, could she have made a better film if less of that was in the room with her?

• 55:04Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's ultimately in her perception of the story. And I think her perception of the story, and again, it is her right, is just not what Wuthering Heights is and kind of fundamentally is misunderstanding it. And it's okay to do that, but it just seems like an odd decision. And so I found myself like three quarters of the way through the movie thinking like, what is she trying to say?

• 55:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Still don't know.

• 55:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 55:27Sean Fennessey?

  And I don't know. And you know what? Some movies don't have to say anything. Some movies can just be Jurassic Park, and they can just be like, wow, holy fuck. And I do think a lot of people will have that reaction to this movie. They're gonna like it.

• 55:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I think Jurassic Park is saying that dinosaurs are amazing, and wouldn't it be cool if we could see them again?

• 55:41Sean Fennessey?

  And don't fuck with nature and, and.

• 55:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess this movie is saying like, wouldn't it be, like, is it saying that it would be cool to have sex with the person you wanna have sex with? I don't know. It doesn't seem cool on the screen.

• 55:53Sean Fennessey?

  Is that something we can all agree on?

• 55:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, but then the movie doesn't seem to agree with it.

• 55:56Sean Fennessey?

  It's like, oh my god, there's a bad romance? I've never heard of that before. That's not an idea, you know, it's just, it's a kind of movie.

• 56:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't understand. I don't, I don't understand.

• 56:05Sean Fennessey?

  Jurassic Park.

• 56:07Speaker 05

  Has a certain appreciation for what the majority of filmmakers enjoy. And I think that Emerald Fennell, in this version of Wuthering Heights, cares less about what the audience will actually enjoy and more about seeing her singular view of filmmaking through. And God bless it.

• 56:29Sean Fennessey?

  But I, and when it comes to male filmmakers, I will praise that all day long. You know what I mean? So I don't want to be a hypocrite. That's why I'm saying like, she's got something. She's, she has a vision.

• 56:38Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 56:39Sean Fennessey?

  I don't really get it, but I really respect it.

• 56:41Speaker 05

  It's provocative. They give people going.

• 56:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it's true, but it's like, you could, you, this is not dissimilar from Marie Antoinette, except I understood what Marie Antoinette was about. I understood the take that it was historically. I understood visually what it was trying to do. It does actually look good. Uh, and the, the songs and the, the modern songs and the anachronisms are actually matched to what's going on in the film.

• 57:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 57:06Amanda Dobbins?

  So some of it, it's not a lack of vision. It's just a lack of, lack of execution.

• 57:10Speaker 05

  Hmm. I need both of you to talk to her.

• 57:12Amanda Dobbins?

  I do also don't understand the vision, so.

• 57:15Speaker 05

  Will y'all interview her? I want you to.

• 57:16Sean Fennessey?

  I talked to her for Promising Young Woman with Carey Mulligan.

• 57:19Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 57:19Sean Fennessey?

  And it was an interesting conversation, but anytime there's a star present, you know, it's a different kind of a conversation. It's a little harder to drill deep, but I, I would, I don't, I don't know.

• 57:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, no, not again.

• 57:27Speaker 05

  What was that?

• 57:28Sean Fennessey?

  Wow, we need a real solve on that.

• 57:30Speaker 05

  Emerald Fennell did that.

• 57:31Sean Fennessey?

  Um.

• 57:33Sean Fennessey?

  It's the second time in two episodes that's happened.

• 57:35Speaker 05

  I just want someone to ask her and get like a straight answer. Like, what is the North Star of your work? What is your mission statement of your work? And how do you execute it? I'm just interested.

• 57:46Sean Fennessey?

  That might be revealing too much for her, you know? That might be, there's something going on.

• 57:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 57:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you think, could most filmmakers answer that?

• 57:55Speaker 05

  I'd love for them to.

• 57:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Coherently, and also if they.

• 57:56Sean Fennessey?

  I think many could, but would not.

• 57:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Many could and would not. And the ones who could, I become wary because then they're more interested in what it, that's, that's a corporate answer, right? You know, like, what are we putting on the deck?

• 58:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 58:07Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not, it's.

• 58:08Sean Fennessey?

  I have to say this. I said, I said this a bit during Saltburn and I, I circled back to it immediately after we watched the movie a few weeks ago.

• 58:16Sean Fennessey?

  We know that Emerald Fennell is interested in low-born figures attempting to break the structure of power through revenge, sex, or death. And these three ideas are intertwined in all three of her films. I am very curious about this obsession, given her own class status. What is her class status? Not poor. Like, she comes from a somewhat wealthy background. Okay. And I'm not pocket watching. I'm just, this is another movie where the low-born person is like more devilish than they need to be in the story and more a sower of chaos than they need to be. And I don't really get what that is. But it, and that is now persistent. It is now consistent. Okay. And- She's making films about class.

• 59:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 59:00Sean Fennessey?

  But is she like, these people who have less than me are trying to kill me? Like, I'm a little worried that that's what she's trying to say. Because Catherine does die. Yeah. And we kind of feel like we have to blame Heathcliff for her death. Yeah. And that's what Saltburn is. Yeah. Yeah.

• 59:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm honestly now trying to-

• 59:18Sean Fennessey?

  This makes sense to me.

• 59:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm on Wikipedia trying to parse her, like, early life and education sections and then her parents and, like, trace it back.

• 59:26Sean Fennessey?

  Her father's a well-known jeweler in England.

• 59:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. But that is, you know, and then she went to Marlborough, which is also where Kate Middleton went. Her hus- her father went to Eaton. So they are people who are, like, very in the class system. But like, England class system and titles and money and like all that stuff.

• 59:42Sean Fennessey?

  It's different than ours.

• 59:43Amanda Dobbins?

  It's like, so I don't know. I'm not excusing anything. Or I'm just wondering if she sees herself or has felt herself as the outsider in these places.

• 59:55Sean Fennessey?

  That may be true.

• 59:56Amanda Dobbins?

  At some point, which I don't know.

• 59:57Sean Fennessey?

  But we see Barry Keegan's middle-class existence in Saltburn, and we see Heathcliff, a street urchin, taken in by a wealthier family. That is not how she grew up.

• 1:00:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I do also think she has, like, good family friends with Andrew Lloyd Webber, so.

• 1:00:11Sean Fennessey?

  Right. I'm not-

• 1:00:12Amanda Dobbins?

  She was cast to play Camilla Parker Bowles on The Crown.

• 1:00:15Sean Fennessey?

  To me, I'm not really accusing her of anything. I'm just kind of like, why do you keep coming back to this? It's now a trend, so why is it? And that is a question I would ask. Ask her. That is the thing I would be curious about. Get her on this show. Because- If it's what I'm afraid it is, it's very bad. Like, that's not a good perspective from which to write, that like, the lower class is trying to kill you. That's something that like, terrible people in the world communicate all the time in our terrible country.

• 1:00:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:37Sean Fennessey?

  So, I, I don't know. It keeps churning inside you, hearing that.

• 1:00:40Speaker 05

  My biggest question, and I never expect or want any filmmaker to make films that are like a false racial diversity cornucopia. But if she is thematically dealing with class in all of her work, you cannot have an actual conversation about class that is complete without it being complicated by race. And I think that, I think that I would be getting more brave film from her if she tried to tackle that.

• 1:01:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:18Speaker 05

  I get it. She's from her place, from her lane, but I'll say this, till the cows come home. It's okay for singular writers to write with other people. It's okay to collaborate and say, how can I expand my worldview and my vision to, to, to speak to this better? I wish Mike White would have done that with The White Lotus. I just think that we're in this moment of singular creatives that drive their vision all the way through, but I will always want a work that is tempered by a writer's room and good editors.

• 1:01:53Sean Fennessey?

  I think-

• 1:01:53Speaker 05

  Not the soapbox.

• 1:01:54Sean Fennessey?

  In order to do that, you've gotta have some quieting of the ego, right? Because a lot of these people are driven, and one of the reasons they're so successful is because they're like, my vision, my vision. And then, you also, I think, have to have trust between partners to do that well.

• 1:02:08Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:02:08Sean Fennessey?

  And that's really unusual to find that, to find a diverse partnership between two people who can bring both.

• 1:02:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm not saying it happens a lot.

• 1:02:16Sean Fennessey?

  This is one of the things I love about the show Industry, is that that's a show between two guys who are similar, but have come from different backgrounds, but you can see that they're kind of like smashing up against each other at times in the way that they're portraying different characters who are not all white in that world, which I love about that show, that you don't see that very often.

• 1:02:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:02:34Sean Fennessey?

  You don't see that. But anyway, this is an interesting movie. It's gonna make a lot of money.

• 1:02:39Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:02:39Sean Fennessey?

  It could have been a Netflix movie, and shout out to the people who, especially Emerald Fennell, who decided not to make it a Netflix movie and make it a Warner Brothers film. I think it's better for it. I think it's better on the big screen. I think this would be a tough sit as a streaming movie.

• 1:02:53Sean Fennessey?

  I'm glad it's not that.

• 1:02:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:02:54Sean Fennessey?

  I'm sure next week we'll talk a bit about the box office reception and how big it can get. It is Valentine's Day after all.

• 1:03:02Speaker 05

  At least 20 million.

• 1:03:03Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, I think it's like 40 million, maybe 50 million. I think it's gonna do really well.

• 1:03:07Speaker 05

  And for that alone, thank you Emerald. Butts in seats is always good.

• 1:03:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, speaking of butts in seats, Pillion.

• 1:03:14Speaker 05

  Did I say her last name wrong? Sorry. Fennel? Fennel?

• 1:03:17Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's Fennel, but I don't know. But it doesn't matter.

• 1:03:19Speaker 05

  I'm sorry Emerald.

• 1:03:20Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think she's. If she's listening, this is a tough sit.

• 1:03:25Amanda Dobbins?

  But also call us. Let us like, we'd like, I'd be happy to talk.

• 1:03:28Speaker 05

  I need y'all to grill her.

• 1:03:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Genuine questions.

• 1:03:29Speaker 05

  I need y'all to grill her. Like, I just, yeah, yeah. I also, I always want a thesis statement from a creative. I like it. I know it's corporate, but I'm like, what are you about? Give me an, I love an elevator pitch.

• 1:03:42Sean Fennessey?

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• 1:04:27Sean Fennessey?

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• 1:05:12Sean Fennessey?

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• 1:05:25Sean Fennessey?

  Pillion is written and directed by Harry Lytton. It's adapted from a novel that I've not read. I looked at, but I've not read called Box Hill by Adam Mars Jones. I did, I did as much homework as I could for this episode. It starts Harry Melling and Alexander Skarsgård. This is a smaller film than Wuthering Heights, so I'm going to give a little recap of what this story is. Colin, a timid man, meets Ray, a confident biker gang leader, who initiates him into a submissive relationship, challenging Colin's mundane existence and prompting personal growth through their unconventional dynamic. What'd you think of this, Sam?

• 1:05:55Speaker 05

  I love this movie so much. I saw it as God intended at The Grove.

• 1:06:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Me too.

• 1:06:05Speaker 05

  Before the Cheesecake Factory.

• 1:06:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, I didn't get that.

• 1:06:07Speaker 05

  With my boyfriend.

• 1:06:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Beautiful.

• 1:06:09Speaker 05

  And it was just, it's, I like that this movie doesn't waste a single second. It is wonderfully paced. The script is sparse in just the right ways. And unlike Wuthering Heights, this film lands the plane. It is not a happy ending, but it is an ending that feels fulfilling. I love this movie. I loved it. I really don't have too many notes.

• 1:06:36Sean Fennessey?

  I feel relief because it's one of my, it was one of my favorite movies of last year, even though it's technically a movie of this year. What did you think, Amanda?

• 1:06:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, same. It's, I mean, it's funny to say about like a dom-com with, you know, politics and, and ideas that have not historically been explored in cinema. But I found this like very old school in the best way.

• 1:06:59Sean Fennessey?

  Totally.

• 1:07:00Amanda Dobbins?

  It was just very familiar. As Sam said, it is like, it is, I don't want to say small, but it is specific and you are following a group of characters who the filmmaker totally understands, the world is fully realized and like-

• 1:07:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Familiar beats, if not of of plot, then of emotion and someone trying to figure out what they want in the world and figure out what they want

• 1:07:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:07:28Amanda Dobbins?

  From someone else. And then some unusual situations, some funny, some sad.

• 1:07:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:07:34Amanda Dobbins?

  And then, and you know, then we move on. Bigger, you know, full of our lessons and and happy for what's happened. It was great. It is a classic romantic comedy.

• 1:07:46Speaker 05

  But also, it's like, what I love about it is like, it hits those classic beats. And yet, every expression of the beat is a thing I haven't seen in this kind of film before. The first scene in which these two people come together sexually is in an alley. And he's pulling out his dick and it has a cock ring in it. Like, it's pierced.

• 1:08:03Amanda Dobbins?

  It's true.

• 1:08:04Speaker 05

  And it's like, that's where we start.

• 1:08:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:08:06Speaker 05

  And so to see the rom com beats be hit in this queer, some call it nasty, like, like visceral world, I thought that was really hard to pull off and they did it very well.

• 1:08:20Amanda Dobbins?

  It is also really hard to have, to incorporate consummation, sex in a romantic comedy, and still keep the film and the tension going. Because that is so much, like, the tension of a romantic comedy is like, are they gonna get together? But like, are they gonna, they gonna have sex? And you think about it, most romantic comedies, maybe they have sex once and then it was like an accident or like, oh no, you know, some sort of miscommunication. But sexual, sexual tension is an essential part of most of these structures.

• 1:08:52Sean Fennessey?

  So that, to me, is the ingeniousness of this movie is, is that that thing is what you come to expect from a movie like this. And this has the same structure. It's just that this kind of like fights and quibbling and will they, won't they is expressed more in their sexual encounters.

• 1:09:07Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:09:07Sean Fennessey?

  The wrestling sequence between them, the orgy, their first missionary sex.

• 1:09:12Speaker 05

  First time that he bottoms it. And he talked about how painful it is.

• 1:09:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. All of those things, those are the moments when you expect the two movie stars to be like, I hate you. I hate you more, you know, but it actually is expressed in physically between them. And you've seen, like, the way that Colin's story is told is really interesting to me because he has found something that he desperately wants, right? He's this lonely kid in Bromley, who's in this really square family and they're singing barbershop quartet music at Christmas time.

• 1:09:42Sean Fennessey?

  And he is like unseen and unloved and, you know, a gay kid who just doesn't have any love in his life.

• 1:09:48Amanda Dobbins?

  He's a parking monitor.

• 1:09:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, yes, exactly.

• 1:09:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Which I, every time I've parked since then, it's an incredible detail in those.

• 1:09:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, and those guys are either the most ignored people on earth or the most hated people on earth.

• 1:10:00Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:10:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Which you see the great scene of someone being like, have you no shame?

• 1:10:04Sean Fennessey?

  Which is a great stroke. And, and this incredible idea of like, what would you do if your ripped from the pinup calendar idea of perfection was presented before you? And actually took you on and enslaved you in a way, you know, like made you the submissive in a relationship. And how much would you like it? What would be the ways in which you would like it? And then what would be too far or wrong?

• 1:10:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:10:28Sean Fennessey?

  And when would you break and what would cause you to break? And the movie has really interesting notions of like, kind of what causes someone to become uncomfortable in this kind of arrangement. But that doesn't mean that that means the arrangement is not right for the person. So I found there's like an amazing amount of nuance in Colin and what he's interested in.

• 1:10:43Speaker 05

  And I think that they were able to get to this nuance because the whole time, in spite of this dom sub relationship that is very much about control and power. It's also always consensual. Skarsgård's character is never making him stay. He always chooses to do it. He chooses to be the sub. And that is actually quite different from the book. I think in the book, the first sex scene is tantamount to rape. So to make that choice, it, it helps this film remain lovable the whole time.

• 1:11:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:11:14Speaker 05

  Because it's only, it is consent focused.

• 1:11:17Sean Fennessey?

  We should talk about Harry Melling and Alexander Skarsgård. Harry Melling, you know, I think best known from Harry Potter. Harry Lighton said he saw him in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. I don't know if you guys remember that from that movie, that Coen Brothers movie, which is an omnibus story. And he plays a carnival performer who has no appendages. And he is reading a poem over and over again. And that is sort of what, he's like a freak show.

• 1:11:37Speaker 05

  Oh my God.

• 1:11:38Sean Fennessey?

  But he's amazing in the film. And so he cast him out of that and he is kind of mesmerizing in this movie.

• 1:11:44Sean Fennessey?

  Even though he is, has to be so internalized and you're kind of like desperate for him to enunciate. How he feels or what's going on, but he, it's such a. Performance in the face that I really, really enjoy. And Alexander Skarsgård, by the same token, who's on a bit of a run right now.

• 1:12:02Speaker 05

  That man is always on a run.

• 1:12:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Always on a run in my house.

• 1:12:05Speaker 05

  I came out of that film, I was already impressed with him. I think that he was the best part of season one of Big Little Lies.

• 1:12:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:12:14Speaker 05

  But after seeing this, I'm like, oh, you might be on your way to being one of the greats.

• 1:12:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:17Speaker 05

  He's got it. And he chooses well.

• 1:12:20Sean Fennessey?

  He has great taste. He had a really rocky start. Remember he was Tarzan? And he's been in some odd studio movies. But he has really, like, in the last five or 10 years, Harry said that, you know, it was really the last season, season four of Succession that got him really interested in how he could express power on screen. I know there are some ways in which you know.

• 1:12:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I also recommend Park Chan Wook's Little Drummer Girl, which is a mini series adaptation. If you haven't seen it, it's really good and he's in it. Yeah. All right.

• 1:12:48Speaker 05

  I'll watch.

• 1:12:49Sean Fennessey?

  What'd you think of Skarsgård?

• 1:12:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I get it, you know, I understood going in and there is, I think, something both to the casting, but the filmmaking, it relies on the audience also being completely understanding why Colin would not just want to be in this type of relationship, but why this person has such a, like, appeal to him. You have to be able, even if, like, even if you're kind of going back on the fourth on what you want for Colin, like, you understand why he is in this relationship and not just because he's learning stuff about himself, also because that guy's a real dreamboat. And then I think the flip at the, when they, you know, they take a day off.

• 1:13:37Amanda Dobbins?

  How about that? And we don't have to say anymore.

• 1:13:38Speaker 05

  Beautiful.

• 1:13:39Amanda Dobbins?

  And it's so beautiful and also what Skarsgård does in that moment and then how. Homeling responds to him and is, I think, like, a real gift. Like, their abilities to change their relationship is pretty, it's amazing.

• 1:13:57Sean Fennessey?

  But kind of tragically. You know, the impossibility of that level of happiness is also, when we talk about like yearning and what people really want and what I think Emerald Fennell is thinking about and what that novel is about, as opposed to this.

• 1:14:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:10Sean Fennessey?

  Which I think really literalizes it in such a cool way in the final act of this movie. That just like left me feeling that like happy sad.

• 1:14:18Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:14:19Sean Fennessey?

  That's a.

• 1:14:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, yes.

• 1:14:20Speaker 05

  And I think what we're feeling happy sad about and the difference between Pillion and Western Heights is that the protagonist in Pillion, by the end of the film, exhibits a great deal of personal growth.

• 1:14:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:14:32Speaker 05

  He grows through this experience. And he becomes someone who knows more about what he wants and about how to get it.

• 1:14:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:14:39Speaker 05

  He is wiser because of it.

• 1:14:41Sean Fennessey?

  He's not defeated by the relationship.

• 1:14:42Speaker 05

  Yes. Every character in Western Heights, compared to that, feels static. Who is growing? Who is becoming a different person?

• 1:14:49Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm.

• 1:14:50Speaker 05

  And they, they pull off that growth beautifully and it makes me love it more. I love it. It is, it is, it was very interesting watching it as a homosexual with my partner in the theater full of homosexuals. And I think that the poignancy of the way that this film is expressed is that it speaks to a truth for a lot of gay men. Like, sometimes the partner that teaches you the most, you never see them again and you never know their name.

• 1:15:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:15:19Speaker 05

  Sometimes the act of learning how to like, love yourself and your sexuality and be fully embodied, it means interacting with people on an extremely temporary basis. And this movie got that, but didn't make it sad. It said, oh, that's just the process and you're okay. You're okay. I loved it.

• 1:15:39Sean Fennessey?

  It's a great idea for, it's not often expressed, like, and the movie is not.

• 1:15:44Speaker 05

  This is a very kind movie.

• 1:15:45Sean Fennessey?

  It, it, it is, despite having such severity and like such physical intensity, you know?

• 1:15:51Speaker 05

  Well, because the moral of the story is like.

• 1:15:55Speaker 05

  The growth happens whether the love that you want stays or leaves.

• 1:15:59Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:16:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:00Speaker 05

  You grew.

• 1:16:00Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:16:01Speaker 05

  You grew. I don't know. I find that so much more romantic.

• 1:16:04Amanda Dobbins?

  There's also something about, there's, one of the sex scenes starts with wrestling. You know, there's like.

• 1:16:10Speaker 05

  Which not my kink. God bless it. Not my kink.

• 1:16:12Amanda Dobbins?

  And I, I thought that was like very funny and it is almost played.

• 1:16:16Sean Fennessey?

  Wonderfully choreographed.

• 1:16:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and, and shot and is played, if it's not silly, it's just, there's a lightness to it.

• 1:16:24Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:16:24Amanda Dobbins?

  And, but you know, they are like wrestling each other and I thought that there was something about the way that this, this movie and also these relationships kind of literalize or physicalize the, like the danger or the.

• 1:16:39Speaker 05

  The friction is explicit.

• 1:16:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly. So that, so that there is room for kindness, like in other places.

• 1:16:45Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:16:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Was, I, I thought very lovely. I was very charmed by it.

• 1:16:49Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, and like what you get when you have this setup, when you have these lovers be in a dom-sub relationship, they're both acknowledging from the very start that the friction is the point.

• 1:16:59Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:00Speaker 05

  And the friction is the pleasure, the friction is the growth, the friction is the love. And so that felt so much more understandable to me because the dom-sub makes it explicit. The friction, the friction in, in Wuthering Heights.

• 1:17:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:16Speaker 05

  Felt less focused.

• 1:17:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:18Speaker 05

  It felt like this film just, it was clearer.

• 1:17:23Sean Fennessey?

  I think, I think if it were made a little differently though, it might've felt a little bit more anthropological about a dom-sub relationship. And you get a little bit of that because Colin is going through this for the first time.

• 1:17:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:17:33Sean Fennessey?

  So there was some sort of like rules of engagement that is happening. But a lot of, one of the things that I really thought was smart about it was, and I don't know if this is in the novel or not, but the way in which Colin's family reacts to their happiness for his relationship.

• 1:17:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:47Sean Fennessey?

  And then their confusion and in her mother, in his mother's case, like kind of revulsion and frustration with Ray when she finally meets him.

• 1:17:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:17:55Sean Fennessey?

  Felt not like a movie made in 1972, you know, where it was just like, oh, my gay son. I'm so ashamed, you know? Conversion therapy, how can this possibly be happening? He's been expelled from the family. It was sort of like, that was an inclusive, loving family, but also there was a step beyond that they couldn't get comfortable with. And it felt actually more like lots of relationships you see in any family, which is like, your boyfriend sucks and we're not happy about him and you should break up with him, which is very universal.

• 1:18:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:18:23Sean Fennessey?

  You know, like, and it doesn't really matter what the nature of that relationship is. It's just like, this guy's not nice to you and that matters.

• 1:18:29Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 1:18:29Sean Fennessey?

  But your parents can never really understand your psychology in a relationship and they'll never really try.

• 1:18:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:18:36Sean Fennessey?

  So there's something, I, I thought that that was very subtle and interesting, the way that all that was portrayed.

• 1:18:40Speaker 05

  Well, and Skarsgård's character, Ray, he, he kind of pushes back on the mother character and is like, the fact that you even want your child to have a relationship that pleases you, that's the problem.

• 1:18:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:18:52Speaker 05

  And I'm like, say, this film, this film felt so affirming, having not seen gay films get these beats right.

• 1:19:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:04Speaker 05

  I think there's so many queer films, queer romances, that try and then fail to get at the small bits of nuance that Pillion gets right. And it's remarkable that it gets these small bits of nuance right in a plot that is like big and dom sub. Like threading that needle is pretty remarkable.

• 1:19:27Amanda Dobbins?

  And also, like, another, like, not totally happy, like queer love story ending in the sense that it's not, you know?

• 1:19:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:19:35Amanda Dobbins?

  That.

• 1:19:36Speaker 05

  I don't want to spoil it.

• 1:19:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but it's not, you worry.

• 1:19:41Sean Fennessey?

  It's not a fairy tale.

• 1:19:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly, it's not a fairy tale. And you even worry for like the first couple of minutes of like, oh no, is this another one where it's just like the sad, lonely gay kid and it's not, it's not going to turn out? And it handles it with such good.

• 1:19:51Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. Like, he does, like, this is a romance where by the end of it, you realize that the protagonist has come out of it loving himself more.

• 1:20:00Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:20:02Speaker 05

  Sign me up.

• 1:20:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:03Speaker 05

  I can't stop.

• 1:20:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Can we talk about penises for a minute?

• 1:20:05Speaker 05

  Sure. Was it his?

• 1:20:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I I assumed not, but but I thought that the editing, the cutting was more about that there was like a very specific. There's only so much that you can see.

• 1:20:17Speaker 05

  And you see the piercing.

• 1:20:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:20:18Speaker 05

  That's what they want you to see.

• 1:20:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, but but before they avoid an X rating. But I just, you know, because I I said, I mentioned, I watched heated rivalry to catch up with just how we're doing sex on screens right now. And also, like, a lot of gay sex, but, you know, no full frontal.

• 1:20:35Speaker 05

  And no real friction. Like, compare the scenes of the first bottoming scene in Pillion to the first bottoming scene in heated rivalry. In Pillion, he's like, that hurt.

• 1:20:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:20:47Speaker 05

  In heated rivalry, he's great at it the first time.

• 1:20:50Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm.

• 1:20:51Speaker 05

  Now, come on now.

• 1:20:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:20:52Speaker 05

  I'm sorry. It's fantasy. It's fantasy.

• 1:20:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't, I don't understand why we can't have a little more penis. That's just kind of where I am with it. And especially in this one, especially when, you know, the the camping scene. And I I noticed the cutting. And I I I think it's a ratings issue. I think that we need to, we need to broaden the horizon. But like, we're all grownups. That's what I have to say.

• 1:21:20Speaker 05

  Because you see Skarsgård's butt for a little bit. And I'm like, stay there. Stay there.

• 1:21:25Sean Fennessey?

  It it is, in many ways, I think, the last taboo. I think full frontal generally, but explicitly dicks.

• 1:21:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:32Sean Fennessey?

  There is something, you know, it's very obvious what it is. Most of the people who are in power, the ways and means of taste in our society are straight guys or closeted guys who are afraid of dicks. Like, that's really what it boils down to. And they don't want them presented as normal as the way that breasts are presented in our culture. And that's just how it is. And it's not changing. And it's been that way since 1980. And it's going to stay that way, probably, as long as things keep going the way that they're going. It is interesting in the era of Game of Thrones, for example. There's a, there was a very famous moment, or already infamous moment, on A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, the new Game of Thrones show this season, where a knight exits his his hut and pulls out his dick and starts pissing.

• 1:22:14Sean Fennessey?

  And it's just full-blown, full-frontal, and the guy's got a freaking hog on him. Like, it is like a mind-blowing, and it's clearly prosthetic. But it's like played for laughs. It's not a sex scene.

• 1:22:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, well, we were talking about this and you brought up Boogie Nights, which did it. But that is like the conclusion of the film and is a prosthetic and is also like in repose.

• 1:22:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:22:35Speaker 05

  So. But Heated Rivalry is very horny and sexy and arouses you without showing dick.

• 1:22:43Amanda Dobbins?

  It's true.

• 1:22:44Speaker 05

  The thrusting does the work.

• 1:22:45Sean Fennessey?

  It can be done.

• 1:22:46Speaker 05

  The butt shots do the work. It can be done.

• 1:22:47Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, and it's like cutting just so.

• 1:22:49Speaker 05

  Just right.

• 1:22:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Like the shower scene, I was like, oh.

• 1:22:51Speaker 05

  The best part of that show is how they edit the sex.

• 1:22:53Sean Fennessey?

  You know, I'm really glad that I saw In the Realm of the Senses yesterday because it does kind of confront you with like careful what you wish for. Because part of the meat of that story is this woman's obsession, her physical obsession and this man's physical obsession with each other. And they just want to be fucking all the time. And there are just long stretches of the movie in which the woman is just fondling this guy's dick. She is obsessed by it, she is consumed by it. And.

• 1:23:21Speaker 05

  We've all been there.

• 1:23:21Sean Fennessey?

  His thing. And it is like, it is confrontational and it's so, it's so rare to see a movie linger on an erect dick. Like you just, that you don't, you just don't see it if you don't watch pornography. Amanda has never seen any pornography, which is an ongoing exploration on this show.

• 1:23:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:40Sean Fennessey?

  So, you know, to try to map something like that from that movie.

• 1:23:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:47Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think that would appear on Heated Rivalry, right? That's like a streaming show, but in a movie like Pillion where you're like, we see Alexander Skarsgård in nude, erect for four minutes.

• 1:23:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:56Sean Fennessey?

  Would be like stunning. It's unimaginable.

• 1:23:57Speaker 05

  Here's the thing, and I'm glad you brought up pornography. I'm glad you brought up porn because we all live in this world where we can see as much porn as we want, whenever we want. And I'm guessing a bunch of the homosexual men that have gone to go see Pillion also watch a bunch of porn. Knowing that, I don't need the dick there. Mm hmm. I, I'm gonna see dick on my phone if I want.

• 1:24:23Amanda Dobbins?

  No, it's true.

• 1:24:24Speaker 05

  Right?

• 1:24:25Amanda Dobbins?

  You can do that, sure.

• 1:24:26Speaker 05

  Right?

• 1:24:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I did, there was something about Pillion and specifically that camping scene where I was like, I can feel the cut.

• 1:24:33Speaker 05

  For sure.

• 1:24:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, I can feel the, you know, I can feel.

• 1:24:36Speaker 05

  They've talked about it.

• 1:24:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:37Speaker 05

  But, but.

• 1:24:38Amanda Dobbins?

  And, and in that moment, I was like, I wish that we could go there. And I agree.

• 1:24:41Speaker 05

  Did it still work for you as a scene?

• 1:24:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it totally still worked, but I was like, I, I think it's silly. Like, I think that it's, it's not silly on their fault. It's, they, they cut it in order to get the ratings so that more people could see the movie. I understand that. Um, but I'm like, we're all grownups. Like, this movie is about what it's about.

• 1:24:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:24:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I, like, I could see it. I agree with you that on Heated Rivalry, you gotta meet people where they are. There's like a, that's, that's a streaming show that a lot of moms are watching. And you don't wanna be, well, like, or, you know, moms and daughters, which, anyway.

• 1:25:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:25:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I, it's, it would be too much, but I just, I did note that there's no, there's just no penis anywhere.

• 1:25:19Speaker 05

  Yeah. Alexander Skarsgård.

• 1:25:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:21Speaker 05

  Pull it out. Sam, this has been great. Thank you very much. I'm, I'm honored to have been here. I was so nervous. I was like, I gotta watch a bunch of movies and study, cause y'all are pros. But this was wonderful, and I'm so glad that we got to talk about Pillion, because I love that movie. And I think everyone should watch it. Where can we find you? Uh, I host a radio show, YouTube show and podcast called The Sam Sanders Show. It is about entertainment writ large, so we talk a lot about movies, music, TV, books, et cetera. And we drop two episodes a week that you can find wherever you find those kind of things. Um, my latest really, really fun, fun chat, I got to talk to Nia DeCosta.

• 1:26:04Speaker 05

  Recently. And hearing her talk about the way she approaches the work of being a director was fascinating, because she knows that it's like half creative, or even less than half creative, and the bulk of it is managerial. Mm hmm. You're running a business. And she talked at length about what it was like to work for Marvel. She even used of her own volition the F-word, flop, and talked about it. So I would, I would, I would say for fans of this podcast, you'll love that chat. But we have all kinds of things in there, all kinds of fun, uh, episodes every week about fun shit. Thanks, Sam. And I have these guys on there a lot of times.

• 1:26:38Speaker 05

  Okay, let's go to my conversation now with Harry Lighton.

• 1:26:45Sean Fennessey?

  Very happy to have Harry Lighton here. Thank you for being here. I always like talking to first time filmmakers, debut feature filmmakers. This is your debut feature film.

• 1:26:53Speaker 06

  Very much is, yeah.

• 1:26:55Sean Fennessey?

  I like to start by asking debut feature filmmakers, do you remember the movie that you saw that made you want to be a movie maker?

• 1:27:04Speaker 06

  Yes, I do. I um, I wasn't really remotely interested in becoming a filmmaker until I was like nineteen. And up until that point, my favorite film had been like Kung Fu Panda. I was obsessed with Kung Fu Panda. I could like recite the whole thing off by heart. And it's a great film, but you know, I didn't want to become an animator. And then I stayed with a mate of mine when I was moved to London, you know, start work when I was nineteen, stayed with a mate. He was really into films and he showed me the lives of others. And I think it might well have been like the first film I ever watched, which wasn't in the English language. But it also just had a sort of impact on me where I was like intrigued by the design, by both the sort of narrative design,

• 1:27:48Speaker 06

  but also the aesthetics of it. And from then I kind of got more and more stuck in.

• 1:27:53Sean Fennessey?

  So what did you do? How did you then decide to go forward towards that?

• 1:27:57Speaker 06

  I, I'm quite, I'm quite an obsessive guy. So like I, I then was like, okay, I'm going to watch two films a day, every day for a year. And try and, you know, work my way through film history a little bit. And I did that. And by doing that, kind of narrowed in on, on, I guess broadly a style which I liked, which has obviously changed massively now. But um, but then practically I like, I think it took me a couple of years to kind of get the confidence up to actually go and try and make something myself. And the first thing I made was a, was a commercial for a university theatre company. They were doing a play called Arcadia by Tom Stoppard.

• 1:28:36Speaker 06

  And I made a little thirty second commercial for it, which was about a like a tortoise walking to the theatre and um, and it was, it was all right. And I really like loved, it sounds terrible, but it was all right. And I, I like loved the experience of making it. And after that was like, well, I could maybe graduate to working with humans and um, and since then, you know, it was the classic, make a few shorts. And that's how I've come into it.

• 1:29:03Sean Fennessey?

  Did, were you kind of like hunting for the right material to make a feature? How did the story cross your path?

• 1:29:10Speaker 06

  I was sort of, so I made a bunch of my shorts had been, I guess, about like sexual transgression and it's a topic I'd always been quite interested in. But I had spent five years writing a feature film with the same people, the same producers at Element and the same execs at the BBC, but it was set in Tokyo in the world of sumo wrestling. And then the pandemic happened and it became unfeasible to, to make that. And so I was kind of at a loss and one of the execs, woman called Eva Yates from the BBC, she sent me the book Box Hill, which Pillion's based on. And, um, and she said, I think you'll, I think you'll like it because she knew that I've been looking for something roughly in that area.

• 1:29:54Speaker 06

  And, uh, and so it kind of landed at the right time when I was despairing and I was like, okay, thank, thank God I can now go and make my kinky film after all.

• 1:30:03Sean Fennessey?

  Will you return to the sumo wrestling film?

• 1:30:06Speaker 06

  I, it's, it's a question, you know, I like reread the script for the first time in a long time, two weeks ago, and I had thought that there was too much crossover between Pillion and it's called Stable, but actually they were, I was kind of pleasantly surprised by how different they were, so maybe.

• 1:30:21Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting. So I, I took a look at the, um, the story that it's based on and, um, I didn't finish it, but I did notice that it's, it's in first person. And it's, that's very hard historically to translate movies from first person novels. And I'm kind of curious like how you thought about that when you were adapting it and thinking about what, how we should understand Colin.

• 1:30:45Speaker 06

  It was the big, the big question for me was like, because it's, it's both first person, but also this like very complex tone in the book where it moves from sentence to sentence between like humor and sincerity. That's all done through that first person narration. And, um, I remember when I spoke to the novelist, he was, you know, talking about films which have a lot of voiceover in them, you know, referencing. Terence Malick particularly and um and I watched Badlands and I'd seen it before, but I rewatched it and I thought that was an interesting example of a film which has sort of dissonance between between the voiceover, which narrates it like it's this sort of teen movie and then the action, which is kind of dramatizing and um.

• 1:31:30Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting movie about the power dynamic that's not dissimilar from the one in your film too.

• 1:31:34Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think it's it's, you know, definitely was a kind of touch point when we were making Pillion, for me at least. But I knew I didn't want to use voiceover. So then it all became about, okay, how can we, how can we find like equivalent images for that tone? And and I think because because the novel relies so heavily on first person narration and also retrospective narration, that's partly why the film is so different from the novel was we had to discover like a new form and a new, a new kind of time period and all these different things which would like support visual storytelling rather than verbal.

• 1:32:15Sean Fennessey?

  So leather movies and biker movies are actually, I think secretly crucial to movie history. There's obviously like many examples, The Wild One, the Corman biker movies, Scorpio Rising, Girl on a Motorcycle, I was trying to think, I'm Cruising, like, and a lot of intersections with some of the work that you do, but I don't, this movie doesn't really feel like any of those movies. I wasn't sure since the book was handed to you, like, were any of those touch points for you? Did you look at them before you made this?

• 1:32:49Speaker 06

  I actually like deliberately avoided it. I hadn't, I hadn't really watched any of them before I was sent the book and um and what I did know was that like I wanted it to be a contemporary biker movie and I wanted to like update the the kind of iconography of the sexual, the sort of hot biker. And so I did, I like watched The Wild Ones and then was like, actually, you know, there's, I love these movies and I feel like I could love them too much where it becomes overly referential. So I then steered very widely away, but funnily enough, um. You know, I still hadn't seen Scorpio Rising until we started doing press for the film.

• 1:33:30Speaker 06

  And then someone in an interview was like, I loved the reference to Scorpio Rising when, you know, the opening needle drop in our film is, um, it's Betty Curtis. I will follow him. And that's the, the kind of little Peggy March version of that is in Scorpio Rising. So it's funny how these, these, um, moments of crossover happen even in spite of your intentions.

• 1:33:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's really funny. I, the, the very first day of my very first film class, they showed us Scorpio Rising as a kind of like, I think a way to kind of like unnerv your expectations of what film school might be like, you know, like avant garde is going to be a part of the conversation that we're going to have here. But it's interesting the way that like that world, that milieu, like kind of despite it evolving over time, like still holds up cinematically too. So when you say you wanted to create like a new iconography, what do you mean by that?

• 1:34:18Speaker 06

  I mean, the, I think that there's just, you know, whether, whether it is in film or in like literature, there's such a sort of standardized image of the sexy biker in queer culture where it's steeped in like Scorpio Rising and Tom of Finland. And it's a, a retro leveler condemned. And it just seemed like that, you know, if you look at kinks in 2025, a lot of the kind of clothing which is fetishized now has more of a foot in, um, in like urban wear, street wear and, uh, and

• 1:34:58Sean Fennessey?

  Racing culture.

• 1:34:59Speaker 06

  Racing culture. So I was like, well, wouldn't it be fun if the levers which, which Ray wears feel like something new rather than like he is a kind of pastiche of Tom of Finland? I think it'd be very easy to make, at least on this car, it's got to look like a Tom of Finland character, but I wanted to do something else with him. So we gave him these suits, which have like hardware on the knees and go faster paneling on the back. And, um, and yeah, I think it, it, it makes for a sort of.

• 1:35:27Speaker 06

  Something which which sits outside of that biker tradition.

• 1:35:31Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know very much about England. And so I was like, wondering if you could tell me like, why is this set in Bromley? It was a novel set in Bromley. Like, what, what is kind of the character of that space?

• 1:35:42Speaker 06

  The novel's set, the novel's called Box Hill, actually, which is a place. Box Hill's like a famous biker site in Surrey. But, um, but actually for practical reasons largely, it's very expensive on a low budget feature to shoot outside of London because you have to put up all your cast and crew, you know, put them up overnight. And so we knew that we needed it, the place we shot to be within a certain distance of central London. And, and I also knew that I wanted it to have like, that slightly suburban flavour of places on the outskirts of London where they've been a bit forgotten about because I thought, you know, that would speak to Colin as someone who like exists on the margins of culture,

• 1:36:25Speaker 06

  you know, he's not someone who's like, if you don't know London, this might not mean anything to you. But, you know, central London and East London, if you're gay, it's like, you go to Soho, you go to Hackney, and there's like such a thriving, diverse queer life there. Whereas Colin seems like someone who's never really like, never really been witnessed to that. So I wanted him to be in a kind of forgotten town. And then we were like scouting locations. And I went to Bromley and it just had this amazing combination of like, a slightly sort of uncared for high street. And then next to that, a very like idyllic, romantic green space, a park. And I knew that we needed, we needed both for the film, you know, particularly

• 1:37:08Speaker 06

  in that day off where they go, this is later in the film and it's a bit of a spoiler. So I don't know what your spoiler thing is.

• 1:37:14Sean Fennessey?

  We don't have to go too far.

• 1:37:15Speaker 06

  Yeah. But anyway, we needed, we needed the location to be able to hold two different emotional weights, one being kind of drab and the other one being elevated and gorgeous. And Bromley could do that.

• 1:37:28Sean Fennessey?

  So casting Harry and Alexander, I feel like is kind of everything in the movie. And if they're not right, the movie's not going to work. So how do you, how do you cast individually and then make sure that they work together for the, for the piece?

• 1:37:41Speaker 06

  Well, I think that a fair amount of it is just like a wing and a prow when it comes to hoping that they work. I don't do chemistry readings. Okay. That's my idea of hell is like putting two actors in a room and being like, okay, now I have chemistry. I think it's very unfair on an actor as well to like, you know, first dates can be rubbish. But I um, I think of, I think like very long and hard about who I'm going to cast. And in this case, I thought that Colin was a very difficult person to find because um, you know, he's like, he's sort of the opposite of a leading man in many ways. He's supposed to be kind of forgettable and passive and he's rarely like showing much agency in the scenes. And yet, you know, he needs to be the person who holds the camera at all times in the film.

• 1:38:26Speaker 06

  So he needs to be magnetic and I was at a bit of a loss as to who could do that. And then my casting director sent me The Ballad of the Buster Scruggs, which Harry's in and he's of, I, you know, playing someone in like a travelling performance troupe and he's got no arms and legs and he's of

• 1:38:45Speaker 06

  a beta male character, but he was totally captivating and like very moving, even though he was just reading the same poem again and again. It's a great performance. Yeah, it's great. And I then kind of like fell in love with his performances, you know, across a wide variety of them. I thought he had this totally unique flavour to him where he is. He's like, uh, you know, he's very magnetic, but not in a way which you associate with like male leading men. So I wanted him and, and we got him fortunately. He said yes very quickly and then it was, you know, thinking about who would be a good partner for him. And I just had happened to be watching Succession at the time, Succession, season four. And I just thought Alexander was so great in that, like,

• 1:39:30Speaker 06

  I'd seen him in lots of stuff before and, and thought he was brilliant, but in Succession particularly, he was like. You know, he came on to a cast where all those other actors were just like smashing it. They were like, no one, no one shut up about the fact that Succession had the best cast in maybe in, you know, all time in TV. And then he was just sort of psychologically dominating all of those, all of those characters and doing so in a way which like sometimes played into his physicality and then sometimes didn't. And I knew that's why I wanted for Ray, I wanted someone who was like a head turning beauty, but also could psychologically control situations and also be mischievous.

• 1:40:13Speaker 06

  And if you have ever seen an interview of Alex, he's quite mischievous.

• 1:40:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:40:17Speaker 06

  It's sort of the first thing you notice about him. So I thought, let's give it a, let's roll the dice. I thought it was very unlikely he'd come on board, to be honest. But, um, but he then got back within 24 hours saying, let's have a Zoom and we chatted and he came on after that.

• 1:40:33Sean Fennessey?

  I hear filmmakers say that sometimes where you're like, yeah, I'm meeting an actor. They've read my script and I'm trying to, I want to see if they want to get involved. Like, what is a conversation like that actually like? Like, what are you talking about? Are you talking about the character? Are you just talking about who you are and what you believe in? Or what you like, what your taste is? What does that conversation consist of?

• 1:40:50Speaker 06

  It's, it's sort of both, I think. Like definitely, it's funny, we were speaking about this last night and Alexander was like, I remember you were wearing like a cuddly jumper with penguins on. And like clearly I decided that I needed to try and show him that I wasn't just some like terrifying kinky, kinky man, you know, both, both can exist in one person. But I, um, I,

• 1:41:14Speaker 06

  yeah, I remember we spoke for like 20 minutes about, um, about, you know, us and like, I don't know, football. Like all, all sort of knee jerk reactions go to football. And then, and then we did speak about like the character, not in a, not in a very specific way, but more in terms of like the intentions of what I wanted to do with both the character and the film, you know, how I was going to cast around the actors, how I was going to make sure that, that, um, the film felt like it had sort of a lot of research and authenticity behind it, rather than it feeling like a sort of tourist approach to the world of kink. And, um, and yeah, it was, I guess, more that kind of thing.

• 1:41:57Sean Fennessey?

  How do you, um, the movie amazingly like resists falling into the traps of there being like a camp aspect to it, or like mocking the culture in any way. And even if some people come to it with sincerity, it still is like sometimes hard to portray it in a way that can be fun and funny, but is also like that deeply sincere mixture that you talked about in the novel. So how do you do that? The magic trick of tone, I guess, is the question.

• 1:42:25Speaker 06

  I think it's, it's sort of threading a needle a little bit. And I knew that, you know, whenever, it was always the question I was asked by like financiers was, oh, you know, what's the tone of this? Cause it feels like it sits between a bunch of different things. And, um, and so my approach to that was when we were shooting just to sort of collect different options to play one scene in a more broadly comedic fashion and then get the actors to do a more sincere take. And, cause often, you know, you can shoot a scene and get like an amazing version of that scene. But then when you're in the edit and you're trying to compile the whole, it won't sit right. And, you know, you actually need something which is less emotionally weighty and that.

• 1:43:08Sean Fennessey?

  Did you know that from doing the shorts?

• 1:43:10Speaker 06

  I knew that partly, uh, no, I think like, I think because I didn't go to film school, I sort of have just spent a lot of time reading other directors chat about what they do. And I'd read an interview with, with, um, with Sandra Hula.

• 1:43:29Sean Fennessey?

  Sure.

• 1:43:29Speaker 06

  Where she had talked about.

• 1:43:31Sean Fennessey?

  Tony Erdman kind of like that.

• 1:43:32Speaker 06

  Justine Triere and Maranasa.

• 1:43:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:34Speaker 06

  Both being directors who collect lots of material. And, um, and I think Sandra actually sort of talked about how it was something which she found to be more common in female directors than male directors. But it sounded just like a great, a great thing to me and kind of a, a like. Maybe a sort of slightly less ego driven way of directing by being like, actually, I don't necessarily know what I want. And so it's worth having options for myself when I'm in the edit. And yeah, I'm very grateful for it. There were lots of moments when we were shooting where I'd be like, oh no, I've got it. And then my cinematographer, Nick Morris, would be like, but maybe we should just try a different, a different version. In the edit, I constantly was ringing Nick up and being like, I love you. Thank God that you said this.

• 1:44:19Sean Fennessey?

  I was gonna ask you if it, first of all, that's an amazing insight that just like reading the interview to say like, I should think about actually the strategy and like kind of methodology of shooting the script that I've written is, is really interesting. But on the page, would you say that it was funny? Did it like, was it, did it read as comedy?

• 1:44:38Speaker 06

  I thought it was hilarious. But like, then some people would read it and be like, no, this is not, this is not funny. I, I definitely intended it to be funny. And, and you know, and like Alex, on the, he was saying yesterday that one of the things which surprised him when he read it was that it made him laugh so much. And, and I think actually it was the, it was the kind of sincerity, the emotional weight which people found harder to understand on the, on the page, because, because that owes a lot more in the finished film to like, very small moments of performance, like a look, which, which you know, you don't tend to describe in the, in the script.

• 1:45:19Sean Fennessey?

  I do think there are a lot of people who are gonna come to the movie who have no access to the culture, like that they don't understand it at all. And so I was wondering how much you thought about where to be kind of prescriptive or instructive or explanatory about what is transpiring versus just portraying the world as is and letting people figure it out for themselves.

• 1:45:41Speaker 06

  I definitely thought a lot about how to not, how to not just totally hold an uninitiated audience at arm's length. But my answer to that wasn't to, to like lean into exposition or to over explain like the processes within this subculture. It was more to find like,

• 1:46:01Speaker 06

  Fine tones which would make them enjoy themselves. So like comedy being the main one. It was like, okay, well, if I'm watching a film and there's something which is a bit abrasive or unsettling to me, but then in the next moment I'm laughing as I would if I would watch like a Bridget Jones movie or whatever, then I'm going to be less inclined to leave the cinema at the first blowjob. So that was kind of my, my tactic. I, I can, I, I get a bit turned off by films where it's about a kind of niche subject matter. And then the film is constantly being like, by the way, this is how this subculture does it. Cause it's, it feels like you're, as the filmmakers, you're, you're existing a remove from the subculture you're portraying.

• 1:46:44Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm. Yeah, that's really interesting. I'm curi-, I was also curious about like the choreography of the movie. You got this like wrestling set piece right in the middle and there's obviously multiple sex scenes in the film. And so how you just even kind of strategize to shoot that sort of thing, I'm, I'm so fascinated by. Is it like choreographing an action sequence or dance sequence?

• 1:47:02Speaker 06

  I have not got much experience choreographing action sequences and I imagine they're a bit more involved. I, um, the wrestling scene was definitely the most like involved choreography. And we got a stunt coordinator and, um, but I sort of, I'm a big wrestling fan and it was one thing where I sort of on the page was pretty prescriptive and being like, and then they do this move, then they do this move, then they do this move. Um, with the sex, it was more about finding a balance. Actually, you know, we would, we, the sex scenes definitely were the longest blocking on the day of any of the scenes. Cause we'd like start with what we had on the page and then there'd need to be quite a lot of, um, readjustment, you know, for instance, the orgy scene, they were having sex on these

• 1:47:46Speaker 06

  trestle tables, which were incredibly wobbly. So we had to like find, do, do work around for that kind of thing. But it's about, um, you know, in my experience. You know, working with an intimacy coordinator in those sex scenes, it's about like finding enough structure so the actors then feel confident providing the like present tense to it and not having to necessarily be like, right, I'm gonna do sixteen pumps. And then those kind of, you can always sort of tell when a when a sex scene has been too choreographed.

• 1:48:18Sean Fennessey?

  Right, right. There's a kind of a somewhat abstract idea that's in the movie that I really like, which is that yearning is not connected to sex, that like there is this idea of longing for something that isn't just like a physical longing that the movie kind of like walks through. And I don't know how much you had to kind of specifically thought about that because so few movies like genuinely authentically portray sex, especially not a lot of queer movies, especially not a lot of queer movies that are released by studios. So, I mean, can you can you kind of talk through that? Because I think we think we kind of collide those two things and they're not the same.

• 1:48:55Speaker 06

  Yeah, and I think I think it's, you know, obviously, it's not one size fits all, but like often, the experience of like coming into knowledge about sex and about your desires is like learning that actually there is a difference between those two things. And you're like first love, you associate that immediate sexual desire with longing. And initially, you think, okay, well, that combination is is love, maybe. But then, as you know, as your expectations for other parts of a relationship chafe up against the good sex you're having, then they begin to separate. And I think it's kind of the journey which Colin goes on in the film is being like, right, well, there's

• 1:49:40Speaker 06

  this, there's this man Ray who who sexually satisfies me massively, and in some ways emotionally satisfies me, but in some ways doesn't. In some ways, I need more. And I think, you know, eventually, eventually, that's what creates the real source of conflict in the film.

• 1:49:58Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's such an amazing aspect of the story that you're telling. I also really like the way that you portray Colin's parents and the complexity of engaging with something like this and like the desire for sensitivity and then the loss of control, the sensitivity around their son and the relationship that he's in. How did you think about how to write that?

• 1:50:20Speaker 06

  I with them was sort of really reacting against like the tropes of parents in queer cinema. I um, I think I have quite a low attention span generally and and specifically. I'm just a bit bored of seeing that like arc in queer narratives where parents go from, you know, not accepting their gay kids to then over the course of the film, accepting them. And I was like, you know, if we're going to set this in modern day Britain, it's more typical really these days for parents to be accepting, but that acceptance isn't isn't sort of objective.

• 1:51:00Speaker 06

  The definition of acceptance, I think, fluctuates depending on how how normative the homosexuality you're presenting is. And so it was kind of an interesting question for me, like, okay, what if you start with incredibly accepting parents like caricature, caricaturishly, not a word, accepting parents and then um, and then at a certain point, their son gets the boyfriend they've always wanted him to have, but that boyfriend turns out to come in in a package which they don't recognize and which I think in some very valid ways, they find uh, they find like a warning or off putting. Um, so yeah, we sort of reverse that typical trajectory.

• 1:51:42Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm. Um, I'm curious more broadly for the like pathway to filmmaking in England right now. Like, what was the the journey like, this sort of like 10 year journey that you were on? How do you find it? Like, what what is the sort of state of the industry for young filmmakers from your perspective?

• 1:51:56Speaker 06

  I think that my journey was sort of fairly typical. I mean, I didn't go to film school, which is um, which is less typical, but um, but shorts is really the gateway into into independent film. It's some, it's making a short and it's very competitive, obviously, but then if you have a short which does well, which, you know, someone likes or goes to a good festival, then often the great thing about the UK is you have public funding. So like the BBC or the BFI or Film Four might then be like, okay, we'll give you a, we'll give you a um, a fee to write a script for us, to develop a script with us, which is what happened for me and a bunch of filmmakers I know. But like, you know, as with everywhere.

• 1:52:43Speaker 06

  But it's certainly true in the UK that funding is really, is really limited. And there's definitely massive issues in terms of like class inequality and social inequality. And, you know, who, who is even able to get on the path to accept that kind of funding? So I think it's like, there's still a lot of work to do in making, making sure that there's of equal opportunity when it comes to funding.

• 1:53:08Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm. And like, what are your ambitions at this point now that you've made this? Like, do you want to make bigger films? Do you like staying in a kind of independent lane?

• 1:53:18Speaker 06

  I, well, I definitely think I want to stay in an independent lane for now. I, um, I really, one of the best things about making this film was that I cared so much about it. And it took a long time, but I made it with people who I really like. I really felt protected by and, um, and I also had a degree of control over the, over the, the outcome. Because the budget wasn't stratospheric. Um, and I, you know, I want to give myself the opportunity to make bigger worlds. And, you know, hopefully next time have a little bit more money. But, but if I think about filmmakers whose careers I really, I really, um,

• 1:54:02Speaker 06

  admire someone like Yocham Trier, you know, his, his like body of work feels, feels like he's just been able to maintain a sort of authorship over it by working at a scale which isn't, which isn't, you know, totally prohibitive of control. And, um, I think that's what I want to do. Yeah.

• 1:54:21Sean Fennessey?

  It's interesting. I, I talked to him last year on the show too. And he, he spoke a little bit somewhat similarly about kind of staying in his native country and utilizing the structures that are built up around filmmaking in his country and how beneficial that's been for him. And he's kind of dipped out a little bit from time to time, but by the same token, like this, you've got an Alexander Skarsgard movie, A24, distributing here in the United States, that there is like maybe the appeal too of like a wider reach. That's why, so I always ask younger filmmakers whether or not they want to like go bigger, for lack of a better phrase.

• 1:54:55Speaker 06

  I mean, it was definitely an ambition of mine with this because of the subject matter that it wouldn't be relegated to like the underground. And I think that having Alexander come on board was.

• 1:55:08Speaker 06

  Very necessary to convincing even like financiers on our low budget film to finance it because there you know there was a lot of concern. I think that I was going to make some like unrated thing with actors who wouldn't bring people into the cinemas and no matter how good the end product was, it would be, you know, a big loss and and no one has any money at the moment. So you can't you can't roll the dice on something which is definitely going to be a loss. But I think um, I think, you know, maybe going forward, it'll be the same thing. If I want to work with with um, big name actors, it's because either, you

• 1:55:48Speaker 06

  know, I think they're brilliant, which I did with Alexander, and because they're gonna help get a film financed, which otherwise would would be tricky to get financed.

• 1:56:00Sean Fennessey?

  Quickly, I'm curious about the long life of promoting a movie. This film premiered at Cannes. I saw it at Telluride. It's February 5th, we're talking. Still not out in theaters. What's that like to go through like the nine month spin cycle after you've completed the work?

• 1:56:16Speaker 06

  It is, it's wild. It's really wild how um, how, you know, the journey of this film, because it's very much a first for me. It's been like full of excitement. But um, but nine months in like now, I'm starting to be when we go to like Q and A's, I'm like, but surely everyone's heard every, because I've said this like 20,000 times now. And and I definitely am like feeling hungry to get writing again. I was like warned by other filmmakers that, you know, it was naive to think that while you're on the road promoting a film, you'll be able to just crack on with your next one. And like sort of arrogantly

• 1:56:58Speaker 06

  was like, yeah, I'll just knuckle down. And I have not put pen to page at all for like nine months. So I'm actually, you know, we finish doing basically all of the promo stuff for this film in a couple of weeks. And then I'm gonna go lock myself away for six months and not speak to anyone about Pillion ever again.

• 1:57:15Sean Fennessey?

  Do you know what it's gonna be that you're gonna put pen to page about? Yeah.

• 1:57:18Speaker 06

  Uh, I do, I think. Um, I, I don't think I can say, but I've, I've recently worked out the idea. So I'm gonna crack on.

• 1:57:29Sean Fennessey?

  Good luck. We end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they have seen? You seen anything great recently?

• 1:57:36Speaker 06

  Film.

• 1:57:37Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it could be, Damien Chazelle once said the Roman Colosseum.

• 1:57:41Speaker 06

  The moon last night.

• 1:57:42Sean Fennessey?

  Exactly.

• 1:57:43Speaker 06

  I um, I'll say a film, the last great film I saw was The Love That Remains, the Lena Palmerson film.

• 1:57:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, tell me about it.

• 1:57:50Speaker 06

  I firstly am, you know, a big fan of lots of his films. I thought that Godland was like, maybe the last film which truly stunned me where I went, my God, this is masterful. But The Love That Remains is, is I guess more in the spirit of like family kitchen sink drama and um, and yet it incorporates these like sort of slapstick fantasy sequences which feel very new for him. And it's also, you know, he's still working with, with a combination of actors and members of his family, but it's um, it's like, really laugh out loud funny. It's the last time I watched something in the cinema where I was like, like, gasping for air from a scene which made me laugh so much. So it's highly recommended.

• 1:58:34Sean Fennessey?

  It's a great recommendation. Harry, congrats. Thanks for doing the show.

• 1:58:36Speaker 06

  Thanks so much. Loved it.

• 1:58:43Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you to Sam Sanders. Thanks to Harry Lighton. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. Thanks to Lucas Cavanagh for production support. Next week, we've got a draft. What was the draft?

• 1:58:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Oscar snubs.

• 1:58:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, we did it already.

• 1:58:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it was, I think it went well. It was great. The rules are complex and some people let their Oscar nerd freak flag fly, which, you know, this is, we, we accept all tastes on this particular podcast. So that's fine. But it was, I thought it was successful.

• 1:59:13Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. We'll see you then.

• 1:59:34Speaker 07

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