No, that’s not a typo in the headline. James L. Brooks has officially titled his forthcoming dramedy “How Do You Know” sans the question mark of its working title “How Do You Know?”.
In a pretty extensive profile on the film, especially considering it’s not set to hit theaters until December 17th, the NY Times have uncovered a few more details on the film that has been remarkably kept tightly under wraps even though this summer will mark one year since it went in front of cameras.
As we previously reported, we attempted — and failed — to read the massive 160-page script but what we do know is that the film is a sports-centric rom-com which centers on a love triangle between a white collar executive (Paul Rudd) and a professional baseball player (Owen Wilson) who are both vying for the affections of a woman (Reese Witherspoon) who comes from a sports-loving family and is just recovering from a major break-up. Jack Nicholson will play a still undisclosed father figure role that was originally offered to Bill Murray who turned it down.
The NY Times further reveals that “the plot is rooted in an encounter between two people who meet on the worst night of their respective lives.” But perhaps most interesting, for all the focus on the sports angle, it “only occasionally figures in a film that is actually about people trying to figure out exactly what, for each of them, matters most.”
If you’re eyes are already glazing over at the prospect of yet another dramedy about privileged white people with problems, the film was apparently five years in the making, with much of it spent by Brooks neck deep in research. He apparently spent hundreds of hours interviewing female athletes before deciding on baseball as the sport of choice and “became fascinated by the dilemmas of contemporary business executives, who are sometimes held accountable by the law for corporate behavior of which they may not even be aware.” The latter certainly points at thematic territory that will run a bit deeper than, say, “Bull Durham.”
In an interesting side note, just as “How Do You Know” was gearing up for production, Columbia yanked the plug on Steven Soderbergh’s baseball film “Moneyball.” We guess there was only room for one baseball-centric movie from the studio, and the picture starring Jack Nicholson won out.
It’s been six long years since Brooks’ tepid “Spanglish” and the likes of Wes Anderson (whose got his break from Brooks; you can read Brooks account of the story here), Noah Baumbach and Judd Apatow have effectively taken the dramedy crown that he once used to own. It will be interesting to see if, at nearly 70 years of age, Brooks has something fresh and unique to say in a genre that has taken leaps and bounds in the past decade.
