BACK IN STACKS
Emilio comes ‘home’ in new library flick
Emilio Estevez is back in the library — but it’s not like he’s been in detention the last 34 years.
The star of the 1980s classic “The Breakfast Club” relied on a familiar setting for his latest project, “The Public,” which hits theaters Friday. But instead of focusing on a day in the life of five high schoolers stuck on a Saturday, the actor-writer-director turned his attention to the issue of homelessness and how it’s frequently, though not entirely effectively, combated by librarians working in what he calls “the last bastion of democracy in action.”
“What I hoped for is that [the film] would not only explain that librarians don’t just sit around and read all day,” Estevez told the Daily News, “That they are actually front-line first responders in many of our communities, but that the film would act as a catalyst to help further or start a conversation. … My hope is that the film is used by a lot of these [advocacy groups and] organiztions as a tool to help raise awareness.”
Set during a relentless Midwestern winter, “The Public” centers on 10 Cincinnati locals. When the weather proves too threatening to bear, the homeless population that frequents the city’s public library refuses to leave, instead holding “an old-fashioned ’60s sit-in.”
The film, which premiered at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival, is brought to life by an ensemble cast — including Alec Baldwin, Taylor Schilling, Christian Slater and Michael K. Williams.
Schilling — who plays Estevez’s love interest and mouthpiece to the media — says she was drawn to the project “for so many things,” namely the approach it takes to the issues it raises.
“I think the intersectionality of … so many issues that we’re dealing with right now, from like homelessness, militarization of police, poverty … our civil liberties being impeded upon, losing federal funding for social services. They all came together in this film. And it felt so timely two years ago when I read the script, and it’s just sort of become more and more amplified — the need to talk about these issues, the necessity, the space,” Schilling said.
The film, she feels, is equivalent to “[holding] up a mirror, right? That’s what’s interesting, like to reflect yourself back to yourself, hopefully with a little bit of insight.”
A 2007 essay — “What They Didn’t Teach Us in Library School: The Public Library as an Asylum for the Homeless” by Chip Ward — served as the initial inspiration for the film. Ward’s essay paints a vivid picture of the characters who frequent the Salt Lake City Public Library, or, as he refers to it “a de facto daytime shelter for the city’s ‘homeless.’ ” Unlike privately run locations which, Ward notes, “do not tolerate their presence for long,” libraries are different. “Public libraries … are open and accessible, tolerant.”
Estevez took this reality and ran with it, creating his own colorful yet weighty world within the walls of the Cincinnati Public Library.
“I started imagining what this story would [look] like if, again on a cold night, the patrons just said, ‘No, we’re not leaving,’ ” he recalled.