In my last post, I shared a couple of personal moments that planted some of the initial seeds of inspiration that many, many years later eventually bloomed into Old Fashioned.

Today, since I get asked the question a fair amount, I thought I’d follow up with what, specifically, led me to begin the creation of Old Fashioned, in earnest.

For those that are curious, here’s a little bit of “the why” beneath the surface…

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

My heart had lost its way and I was trying to remember the way home…

At its most stripped down, most transparent… that was the spark of inception that led to my writing and directing of the feature film Old Fashioned.

But the deeper inspiration came when I looked around and witnessed that I wasn’t alone, not by a long shot.  The landscape of singles I knew at the time (most in their 20s and 30s) was a romantic wasteland full of wounded and broken lovers hanging on by the thinnest of threads, but desperately wanting to still believe…

In love, in redemption, in the idea that some things are worth holding onto to, worth fighting for…

That respect and honor and integrity still had a place in this world…

That it wasn’t over for them, no matter what mistakes or bad choices or hurts called out to them from the past…

That there was, still, a chance they might find the safe place they were longing for.

It got me thinking about the wide variety of different approaches to dating and courtship… about what was good with the “American” way of approaching romantic relationships and what was lacking, at least from my perspective and experience.

What if a film aimed to take seriously the idea of love?  To do more than just give a wink and a nod to the prevailing ironic, casual, and sometimes even cynical approach to such things?  Do more than just hold up a mirror to the contemporary and obvious?  What if a film unabashedly affirmed the notion that perhaps these things have much more weight than current mores might often suggest; in profound and lasting ways, they matter.  What we say and how we treat each other, matters.  What we do with one another’s hearts, matters.

Pauline Kael once said that “good movies make you care, make you believe in possibilities again.”

Of course I believe that films should entertain; I believe that films should add to the discussion of ideas.  But my greatest hope and prayer for Old Fashioned is that it might do just what Pauline Kael said…

That it might help hearts in need of healing to believe in possibilities again… help hearts that have given up, to care again.

– Rik