The films released by Netflix so far have had varying levels of success. There are examples of wonderful and tender-hearted filmmaking, such as “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” and this year’s “Someone Great,” which help give a platform to a genre that’s too often been dismissed. But then you have films like this year’s forgettable “Perfect Date” or the wretched “Bright,” which make you wonder who writes the checks at the streaming service.
Somewhere in the middle of all of that are gems likes Richard Shepard‘s”The Perfection,” a genre mash of body horror, revenge thriller, and absurdist relationship drama starring Allison Williams (“Get Out“) and Logan Browning (“Dear White People“). It seems destined to reach a cult level status due to its off-kilter delivery and bizarre, beguiling mix of comedy.
Recently, we got to talk to Williams, Browning, and Shepard about the Netflix film.
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How did you first get in involved with the film?
AW: I got a text from Richard Shepard saying “I got a script for you, it’s insane, and I want you to call me right after you read it.” At every single turn, I had no idea what was going to happen next and when I thought I knew I was completely wrong. I just couldn’t put it down and I read it all in one sitting. The movie is intense and it was a reassuring head start to know that I’d be comfortable with the person I was making it with. It was more an issue figuring it out logistically than whether or not I wanted to do it. But Richard was the first draw.
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LB: I received the script and got to go in cold and it was a page-turner. From the moment I got into it I thought it was a familiar story that I thought was going to be like a “Whiplash” or “Black Swan.” When my expectations were first diverted I was so game and I loved every time where I couldn’t predict what was coming next. I also loved that it was led by these two women who were so strong and were both on these nonlinear journeys that were intertwining and somehow meeting back at the very beginning. It was beautiful. Meeting Richard was one of the best things I could’ve done because I got to know him and it was important getting involved with a film like this to be able to trust the person I’d be making it with and whose hands it would be in.
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Richard, you’ve mentioned that the film grew from the idea of the scene of getting sick on a bus in a foreign country. How did it build from there?
RS: I just took that and thought what if we pushed it even further, like what if they were going slightly crazy, what if something was happening to their bodies? It just got really exciting to think of what would the person next to them do. Sometimes movies come from wanting to tell a specific story – this movie came from that idea and then me wanting to make a movie that plays with the genre in a way with twists and turns that would continually be so crazy that people wouldn’t be able to believe that they were all connected in some way but by the end of the movie everything would make sense in the world that we’ve created.
Do you often start out scripts with a scene first and then build around them or was this a unique case?
RS: I made a movie a while ago called “The Matador” with Pierce Brosnan where the whole movie came to be from wanting a scene between two strangers meeting in a hotel bar. I started writing that scene without knowing what the movie was and the dialogue made me find the movie. This is a somewhat similar situation where a sequence led me to the dive into who these characters were.
I think movies come from many different places. Sometimes it’s very clear what type of movie you want to make. I wanted to make a really outlandish genre movie that still also had some emotional credibility. I wanted the twists and turns of a movie like “The Handmaiden” or “Oldboy” that are so out there and crazy but also stylish and beautiful and sexy.
Can you talk about the training that went into learning to play the cello?
AW: We had a little over two months to train and it’s a very difficult instrument which takes years and years to master it. We did our very best learning those songs specifically and making sure we did justice to our characters.
LB: Learning to play the cello was very complicated because I’m at the level of a child – I have no experience – so the instructors were teaching me as if I was a kid. They were putting tape where my fingers should go and teaching me nursery rhyme songs and how to remember notes and scales. It was very humbling and rewarding once I practiced all of those things, and once we got the music I fell in love. From there it was just a matter of learning the choreography of where my hands were going.
