KIELY’S ‘OUTSIDER PERSPECTIVE’
Montreal writer/director’s new film
It certainly is Another Kind of Wedding: family dysfunction rules — and nearly rocks matrimony to its very foundations in the madcap, romantic dramedy, written and directed by Montrealer Pat Kiely.
Formerly titled Someone Else’s Wedding, the movie — co-produced by Kiely and Rob Vroom, also the cinematographer — is some kind of minor miracle. Shot for the ridiculously low sum of $2.5 million — less than the food budget for most major motion pictures — over a ridiculously short 16-day period about 16 months ago in Montreal, the film opened Friday in fairly fine fashion at 11 U.S. theatres, including New York, L.A. and Chicago, before it hits this country’s urban multiplexes May 18.
Regardless of its budget, Kiely and Vroom managed to snare import talent including two-time Golden Globe winner Kathleen Turner, Wallace Shawn and Frances Fisher as well as Canuck stars Jessica Paré, Jacob Tierney, Luke Kirby and Jessica Parker Kennedy. Kiely and Vroom also locked down the tony Windsor Ballroom for some raucous nuptials — quite unlike most that take place at this downtown venue.
“It was definitely a challenge to make this one,” Kiely says. “A budget of $2.5 million is nothing to sneeze at, but it went really quickly. We were constantly under the gun over the 16-day shooting period. It was actually quite terrifying in getting the film out, but I was also really lucky.
“We had some terrific talent and it was definitely intimidating on Day 1 working with Wallace and Frances and an icon like Kathleen, who I adored watching when I was a kid. But eventually I had to forget about it, and realize they’re the actors and you’re the director, and we’re all trying to do something special together.”
Kiely hails from the gonzo Kidnapper film and sketch-comedy crew and was co-director, co-writer and co-star of the 2008 Montreal anglo cult flick Who Is KK Downey? Given their outside-the-box roots, it shouldn’t really come as much of a surprise that he and Vroom, another Kidnapper alum, chose to first launch Another Kind of Wedding three weeks ago at … the Beijing International Film Festival?
“That was very bizarre, yet super cool,” Kiely notes. “Let’s just say that the visual comedy played better than some of the more nuanced dialogue elements. But things are a little bit different there with regard to LGBTQ issues, so scenes like the Turner and Fisher characters in bed together was something the audience wasn’t used to seeing.”
Not to mention some of the film’s other couplings.
Kiely and Vroom had previously partnered on another twisted rom-com, Three Night Stand, shot in and around Montreal five years ago.
But it was KK Downey, a wild and wonky homage to Mile End hipsterdom that first put Kiely on the movie map. Now Kiely is at work, with his Kidnapper cohorts, on a sequel he hopes to shoot next year.
“We’re at draft two or three right now, thanks to development grants from SODEC and Telefilm Canada,” Kiely says. “The guys and I will all be hunkering down to turn out another draft next week. We’re catching up with the same characters 10 years later.
“This one will be a bit of an exploration. In the first one, the characters were all in their 20s and they had all these big dreams. And this film will deal with what happens when all those big dreams don’t come true and how to handle all the existential crises that develop as a result.”
It won’t be pretty, but it will likely be highly entertaining, particularly with the involvement of such lovable KK Downey originals as Dan Haber, Matt Silver, Darren Curtis and producer Kieran Crilly. Vroom will also play a role, as will an array of local sketch comics.
Kiely et al are carrying on the tradition began by such vaunted guerrilla anglo Montreal filmmakers
as Frank Vitale, Allan Moyle and Stephen Lack, who shook up the scene with such gritty street offerings as East End Hustle and The Rubber Gun in the late 1970s.
“There’s a particular voice that comes out of parts of the anglo community here, that was reflected back then and that is still reflected today,” Kiely says. “We feel a bit different from others in Quebec, but when we’re outside Quebec in the rest of Canada, we don’t feel like them, either, because we identify as Quebecers. So it becomes a question of where exactly do we fit in. We are kind of distinct in our own way.
“This outsider perspective has always fuelled our comedy and films. And Montreal will always be where the heart is.”
Also in the works for Kiely is The Long Distance Thing, a TV series about a long-distance relationship focusing on a Mile End couple, and The Break, a featurelength romantic comedy with producer Marie-Claude Poulin.
Kiely says he’s highly energized now and ready to move full steam ahead following a five-month backpacking excursion through Asia.
“I needed to hit the reset button just spiritually for me as a person, after working so quickly on Another Kind of Wedding. I needed to get out of North America. I guess we could almost call it a soul-searching trip.”
Is he a wiser man as a result? “I’m now meditating two hours a day. I have one dreadlock.” Pause.
“Nah, I’m just kidding. I’m exactly the same person as I was.”
Old habits die hard. Fortunately.