When Harry met technology
Concerned about courtship rituals in 2015, writer-director Leslye Headland has created a When Harry Met Sally for the iPhone generation, she tells James Croot. ‘This is really about my observations and experience of the lack of intimacy of an entire gener
LESLYE HEADLAND says her new film Sleeping with Other People is ‘‘pretty autobiographical’’. It’s a frank admission from the mid-30s American writerdirector, particularly given the romantic-comedy is about the ‘‘platonic relationship’’ between a ‘‘good-natured womaniser and a serial cheater’’.
Speaking on the phone from the United States, Headland, whose previous works include Bachelorette and a 2014 remake of 1986 brat-pack dramedy About Last Night, says, like Sleeping’s Alison Brie’s Lainey, she has a best friend of the opposite sex.
‘‘We’ve never kissed or slept together, but we are definitely really intimate with one another. We go out and have brunch, smoke cigarettes, go to the movies, or just hang out, all the time talking about how we are afraid of being with other people – how we hate intimate and relationships. We also make fun of people who were on dates. Other people would think we look like a couple who should be together, but we aren’t.’’
However, she stresses there is a key difference between her and ‘‘Michael’’ and Lainey and Jake (Jason Sudeikis).
‘‘Lainey and Jake were always destined to get together – Michael and I were never interested in that – that’s not our story. He’s going to be the best man at my wedding, I’m sure.’’
While Sleeping with Other People, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in January to rave reviews, ended up being a romantic-comedy about ‘‘two people who teach each other how to fall in love and then do so with one another’’, it wasn’t always that way.
‘‘Just like Bachelorette wasn’t just another raunchy Bridesmaidsesque comedy as many people thought it was, but rather about a group of women who live in a world that hates them, this is really about my observations and experience of the lack of intimacy of an entire generation that doesn’t know what to talk about or how to have emotional intimacy with one another. The girls I know who are little bit younger than these characters are who I really worry about. Their idea of being on a date seems to involve really vile stuff people send on dating apps.
‘‘I looked at my friend’s, who is about to turn 30, and I would never want to meet some of the people on there – the way they talk is disgusting. ‘Dress hot, so I know what you look like’, one said, and she was like ‘I think that’s fair’. ‘No, it’s not,’ I said, ‘he’s treating you like he’s picking something out at the supermarket. You’re going to invite someone into your house who you don’t know to have sex, under the guise of feminism? I don’t think so – that’s how people get murdered’.
‘‘That’s when I thought maybe we need a movie about how different men and women are, but in a candy-coloured easily swallowable pill form.’’
Naturally, such a premise invites comparisons with that most beloved of generation X romcoms, 1989’s When Harry, Met Sally.
‘‘It’s probably my fault for calling it When Harry Met Sally for assholes,’’ Headland laughs. ‘‘It was a very influential movie for me,’’ she admits, ‘‘both structurally and visually. However, I don’t think it is the same setup, because I think our two know they can’t be friends – Jake and Lainey just want to see if it is possible to create boundaries with someone.
‘‘Here in the States, we don’t have any. If I say, ‘I’m not going to have sex with you because I don’t know you’, people say, ‘oh, you’re a prude’. Or if you say, ‘I’m going to see other people even though we’re only casually dating’ – it’s like, ‘oh, you’re a slut’. It’s like there are these weird, made-up rules that no-one told us about that are oddly enforced by our cultures. I wanted to take the shame out of dating, sex, and saying ‘I don’t want to have sex with you’.
‘‘So emotionally it is a different movie to When Harry Met Sally, although we’re leaning on those tropes and those older films (romantic movies from two earlier generations – Casablanca and The Graduate – also are referenced during Sleeping) and saying that sort of romantic vision still exists, even though Hollywood seems intent on trying to push it down with every movie we make.’’ Sleeping with Other People (R16) opens in selected cinemas on Thursday.