Ah, buzz-that intangible murmur that becomes perceptively louder the closer you get to its source. Lately, writer-director Aubrey Nealon and actor Kris Lemche aren’t just getting an earful-by now, they’re probably deafened by it. Their charming coming-of-age indie flick A Simple Curve has just been chosen by the Toronto Film Festival Group as one of Canada’s Top Ten of 2005 and hit screens in Toronto, Winnipeg, and Vancouver last week before opening nationwide soon.
Nealon and Lemche are making every last moment of it. During a press day last week at the trendy Drake Hotel, the boyish pair appear exhausted yet exhilarated, yammering away non-stop with wide-eyed earnestness about their labour of love.
Nealon’s first feature following a handful of well-received short films, A Simple Curve is the story of Caleb, a young man raised by hippie parents in British Columbia’s Slocan Valley, who’s trying to find his own way in the world.
Nealon penned the largely autobiographical script over the course of five years (a early draft won an award in 2002 from the Writer’s Guild of Canada for the best feature screenplay by an unproduced writer), finally cobbling together the financing to make his dream a reality, and the movie was shot in the Slocan Valley in the summer of 2004.
Though the spartan, rushed 20-day shoot posed unique challenges for the cast and crew (there were no daily rushes because the film had to be ferried back to Vancouver for processing, which once nearly brought production to a halt when there was believed to be a problem with the negatives of several days’ worth of filming), the movie couldn’t possibly have been shot anywhere else, Nealon insists.
Star Lemche, 27, a city boy who grew up in Brampton before heading out to L.A. to make his way in the world of showbiz (he’s best known to audiences for his role as “The Cute Boy God” in now-defunct TV series Joan of Arcadia), knew nothing about his character’s small-town world (Caleb, also 27, keeps the family carpentry business afloat while tending to the needs of his flaky father) before arriving in Slocan Valley, but came to appreciate its quiet charms.
“You can’t help but be affected by that place. There’s a lot of resistance to slowing down and embracing that type of culture, when you’re in this high-anxiety, never-stop-moving mentality of city life. But once I did-and no matter when I talk about it, I know I must sound ridiculous and no one believes me-but it’s heaven! It’s just heaven. I was so rejuvenated, when I came home people didn’t even recognize me, I was babbling wonderful things about humanity,” Lemche enthuses, gesticulating wildly.
While an interesting study in contrasts-Nealon’s the more serious one, propped upright on a sofa in preppy sweater and Converse runners while listening attentively to an interviewer’s queries, while Lemche, his angular frame folded into a chair, strikes a James Dean-like figure with his artfully dishevelled hair, white t-shirt, and scruffed boots, stuffing sushi into his mouth between bursts of excited chatter-the two are also like brothers, teasing each other about a just-completed photo shoot (“Kris is up there looking all square-jawed, and I’m, like, squinting in the background.” “Square-jawed? Do I assume a square jaw when there’s a camera pointed at me? ‘Assume the square jaw!'”) and generally coming off as a mutual admiration society.
Nealon notes that finding the right actor to play Caleb was crucial to making his movie, and sure enough, the engaging Lemche carries the film, appearing in nearly every scene.
“It’s only the single most important thing-it’s a movie where if you don’t care about the people you’re watching on screen, you’re not going to be interested. Because it’s not like you’re going to wait for the next car chase or anything,” Nealon laughs. “That’s why I was just so happy to get Kris involved, because he’s got this likable quality. You know you’re watching someone with charisma when they’re making bad choices and you still like them.”
“I haven’t lived here or been part of the movie scene here for seven years, so I rarely get Canadan scripts,” Lemche adds. “This one came to me because everyone who had read it loved it. I said sure knowing this was a small Canadian film and there was no money involved in doing it, but I just loved it so much.”
He recorded a scene on a “ghetto tape” and mailed it to Nealon, who was so taken with the actor’s interpretation, he immediately mistakenly assumed that Lemche must have had a similar background while growing up.
“We proceeded to have a conversation about how close I was to the role. ‘So, your parents were hippies?’ ‘Oh, God, no, absolutely not.’ ‘Where’d you grow up?’ ‘I grew up in Toronto.’ ‘So, you’ve never lived in any sort of small town?’ ‘No, I’ve never really ever even spent any time at all in a small town.’ And you could slowly hear the disappointment creeping into his voice,” Lemche laughs.
“But I guess they must’ve been pretty desperate,” he quips, “because a week later I got a phone call from Aubrey saying, ‘Let’s do it.'”
Though Lemche was more used to the big-budget sets of Hollywood (he chuckles that he told the Simple Curve crew to ignore his Tinseltown manager’s many extravagant requests), he says making the film was the best experience of his career.
“I still nitpick all the time over what I’m doing, but it’s a nice thing to have something of quality in your life, especially in this day and age in the entertainment business, when you don’t have the opportunity to be picking everything you do. I mean, I’m not doing Dawson’s Creek on the WB so I have a bank account with $7 million waiting. I’m trying my damndest to kind of scrounge out some kind of career I can be proud of and still eat, but every once in awhile you really luck out,” he beams.
But for all the buzz surrounding their movie, both Lemche and Nealon know that despite its potential for wide appeal, it’ll still be a struggle to get people out to watch it.
“This is an accessible film, and one that audiences seem to enjoy, but the promotional budgets for these projects are tiny,” Nealon sighs. “I hope this doesn’t turn into another article about young Canadian filmmakers complaining, but we need to start going to see our own movies.”
Having seen both sides of the movie-making machine, Lemche’s far more direct in his criticism of the homegrown industry.
“I hate the way we make movies in Canada. It’s the worst film system I’ve ever been a part of anywhere in the world except Romania,” he howls, completely straight-faced. “The idea that we have nobody with the courage or love of movie-making to finance films in this country-I’m doing this rant, yes,” he throws over his shoulder at an increasingly agitated Nealon.
“Somebody’s got to stand up and make a commitment to good material, and put some money behind it, and behind telling everybody in Canada what it’s about,” Lemche declares.
“The idea that we’re a small country, so we don’t have the market that the Americans have to make these big films, that’s just bullshit. We have the entire world! If Americans can speak English and sell their movies to the world, well, we’ve got some of the greatest artists on earth, and it’s a goddamn shame that nobody knows it except us.”
A Simple Curve is currently playing at Canada Square (2198 Yonge St.).
