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October 17, 2003
Families that stick together
Ben Ratner's film reveals the strength of relationships in difficult
times.
BAILA LAZARUS EDITOR
What is it about relationships that draws us so strongly to people
who are really bad for us? And what is it about families that we
can be screaming bloody murder at one another one minute, and yet
still feel the safest and most secure within them?
These are the themes that bring Ben Ratner's latest film Moving
Malcolm to life and make it one of the more enjoyable films
to see this season.
Although Ratner has starred in several local features, including
Last Wedding (2001) and 19 Months (2002), Moving
Malcolm is the first feature in which he carries dual roles
on set – that of lead actor and director. This gave him the
control he wanted to avoid making the film "formulaic"
to the point where everyone would say, "I get it," and
walks out; but to still make a film that was not "obscure and
a puzzler."
"My favorite films always end on a note that's resonant but
unresolved," said Ratner, who also wrote the script for Moving
Malcolm.
"Resonant but unresolved," is a good way to describe Ratner's
movie. Watching it often made me feel like I was driving over a
smooth road when I suddenly hit a little pothole. The feeling was
that bits of information that I needed – the how's and why's
of a scene – had been cut out of the writing and left like
little script divots on the editing floor.
For example, in Moving Malcolm, Ratner plays Gene, an out-of-work
writer who's left at the altar by his B-movie actress fiancée,
Liz (Elizabeth Berkley). A year later, she returns with a favor
to ask: she has to go to Europe to do a film; will Gene help move
her father, Malcolm (played to delicate perfection by John Neville)
into a new apartment? Gene accepts, thinking it might be a way to
win back his fiancée.
What made Liz leave Gene in the first place; why she thinks she
can return and ask this favor; in fact, why they were together to
begin with are all left as mysteries for the viewer to figure out.
Ratner has left his boot marks all over the typical Hollywood feature:
he actually wants the audience to think for itself.
"If you take a second and don't ask the filmmaker to fill it
in, if you just ask yourself, I think you know why she left,"
Ratner told the Bulletin. "If you put the film through
the filter of your own life experience, you can answer those questions.
"So often we go chasing after someone's image because we're
empowered by standing in the light of their image but we're not
really taking a look at who this person is and how they make us
feel about ourselves," explained Ratner of the chemistry between
Gene and Liz.
"Liz felt good standing in the light of Gene's image because
his image is one of comfort and security and consistency and he's
a nice guy," Ratner continued. "And Gene is this quiet,
somewhat morose guy but when he's around her, she's dazzling, she's
explosive and she's vivacious and it makes him feel good to stand
in that light; so they're really in love with each other's image
and denying the fact that they're incompatible.
"Actors are people who live in their imagination and we genuinely
want to believe that it's real and possible to suspend our disbelief
to take a step like that and then you're going to suffer the consequences
... and that's what Liz does in the movie. She really wants to believe
it."
Gene agrees to help Liz's father out, though neither Gene, nor Malcolm,
like the idea. In addition to the tension that mounts between these
two, Gene has to deal with family woes as his parents have to make
arrangements to put Gene's autistic sister, Jolea (played exceptionally
by Rebecca Harker), in a special home.
The movie is a tribute to his Ratner's own family, in which his
sister really is autistic.
"The thing that is just true is the fact that the family just
sticks together ... because of this autistic kid," said Ratner.
"And there's no getting around that. And for my folks to sit
and watch that, I mean...." Ratner's thought trails off. "It
took me a long time to be able to talk about it without breaking
down and blubbering."
In fact, Jolea's words, "Vanilla ice cream cone then home,"
sum up the theme of the movie – that something very simple,
the comfort and support of family can overcome great hardships.
In a moment of vulnerability, Gene is entreated to go with her sister.
"She was saying to him in that moment 'Come with us; we love
you, we accept you,' " said Ratner.
As the film is "loosely" autobiographical, this meant
more than a few awkward moments when first showing it to his parents,
who are played as a neurotic but loving couple by Babz Chula and
Jay Brazeau.
"I get to show their lives but I get to choose the parts that
are entertaining and they don't have a say in it and that's a difficult
position [for them] to be put in," said Ratner.
He admitted that on first screening, just before the festival, his
mother had a better reaction than his dad, who "went into a
state of shock," according to Ratner. "After a long discussion,
he decided he loved it, too, and he was very proud."
One of the biggest challenges on this film for Ratner was his dual
role, for the first time, as actor and director. It meant that when
the camera was on him for close-up shots, he could play around with
the scene a little, do bits and pieces of a scene instead of the
whole thing. It drove the producers nuts, said Ratner, but he knew
intuitively how it would work. Though he loved the pressure of having
to keep an eye on so many things, in addition to doing his lines,
Ratner can see how it would wear people out.
"If it just meant coaxing a part out of an actor or running
to the truck to get a cup of tea for an old lady, it just felt like
part of the job. And it was fun; I really miss the adrenaline of
spending 18 hours charging around the set," he said. "Only
now that I've finished the film I can say I need therapy and a long
vacation...."
Besides more personal projects, Ratner is working on a script with
local columnist David Spaner for a Second World War period film
called Spadina to be shot in Toronto. Ratner has secured well-known
documentarian Simcha Jacobovici to direct the film as his first
feature.
Moving Malcolm opens at Tinseltown cinemas in Vancouver and
at Canada Square in Toronto on Oct. 17.
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