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Agnes Bruckner plays a troubled teenager in the
summer's most challenging dramatic film, Blue Car.
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The inevitable "Hollywood" question comes later than filmmaker Karen Moncrieff expected. Journalists declared her debut feature Blue Car one of the breakout films of the 2002 Sundance Film Festival soon after its initial screening. Miramax Films quickly purchased it, inviting comparisons to its Sundance pick up from the previous year, the family drama In the Bedroom.
On the afternoon before the festival's closing-night award ceremonies, Moncrieff spent her day inside a stylish Park City, Utah, restaurant completing a marathon schedule of interviews and photographs. Asked by a magazine reporter if she planned to go Hollywood, Moncrieff, 39, laughed loudly.
"I can promise you this," she said. "I will never make X-Men 3."
Blue Car is the type of challenging film Sundance is known for, and festival audiences responded enthusiastically. The film tells the story of a troubled 18-year-old girl, Meg (Agnes Bruckner), who writes poetry as a way to get through life. Meg's parents are divorced. She lives with her younger sister and her mother, who's seldom home.
Meg's high-school English teacher, Mr. Auster (David Strathairn), becomes her father figure and encourages her to enter a national poetry contest. At the contest, their student/teacher relationship turns into something more complex.
Moncrieff's Sundance experience is this year's Cinderella story, the latest tale of an unknown filmmaker cast into a hoopla of paparazzi, journalists and enthusiastic audiences. At Sundance she admitted she was unsure how to handle the attention. She also knew that Sundance audiences seek out adventurous films, while the average American moviegoer is more difficult to win over.
"I'm so thrilled by all that's happened," Moncrieff said, flashing a smile as bold as her designer eyeglasses and spunky pigtails. "I know that this is the kind of story I'm interested in telling, but I also believe that these type of true-to-life stories are what many people want to see. I know that my dad isn't interested in a film like Blue Car, but I think there are many people who are."
The next time I caught up with Moncrieff was an early May afternoon, and once again she was spending her day completing back-to-back interviews. We spoke on the phone, one of countless calls she'd make before the end of the day.
Later in the week, Blue Car would begin its platform release in a handful of theaters in New York City and Los Angeles, and Moncrieff understood that she needed good press coverage if her film would have a chance of attracting audiences.
A successful debut at Sundance is the best launching pad for an emerging filmmaker. What Moncrieff has learned first hand is that frequently the time between a film's festival launch and its release into theaters takes longer than expected. Additional editing pushed back Blue Car's release from last fall to this summer -- it finally opens in Cincinnati on Friday.
"Of course, we went though the test screening process and, of course, on a movie like mine pace comes up," Moncrieff said, speaking from New York City. "Most of the changes I don't think you will feel too much. I was actually happy to have the opportunity. Originally, I only had three and a half weeks to edit the movie before Sundance. There were some things that were lumpy that I was cringing at -- you know, ponderous montage. I wanted to make it a little sleeker and pare some things down."
Moncrieff described Blue Car as a "no-money" production, filmed in the suburbs of Dayton, Ohio, in order to save money. Its costs are miniscule when compared to the average Hollywood movie, but the challenge to make a profit on Blue Car remains.
Hollywood blockbusters like The Matrix Reloaded and Bruce Almighty are everywhere. Moncrieff is hopeful Blue Car will find a niche with moviegoers looking for something more serious and more adult.
"I do feel like the Sundance audience is the audience for this movie," she said. "You know, the people who go to art houses. But Miramax wants a wider audience for this movie. They (Miramax) were testing in the initial screenings for a lot younger audience than I thought the core audience for this film was. I was actually sitting in the test screenings and listening to the audience. It was lot more disinterested audience.
"People go to Sundance wanting to like the movies and paying a lot of money to be there. There was some inappropriate laughter, and I wanted to get a few of those giggles out. There were also some people yelling 'Oh, no!' but I can live with that."
Moncrieff's path to her filmmaking debut is distinct. She was born in California and raised in Michigan by divorced parents. She paid her way through Northwestern University by competing in beauty pageants, eventually being crowned Miss Illinois.
She acted regularly in B movies and daytime soap operas like Days of Our Lives and The Guiding Light. Desperate for better roles, she studied screenwriting at Los Angeles City College. Her script for Blue Car won the Nicholl Fellowship from the Academy of Motion Picture Art and Sciences.
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Photo By Steve Ramos
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Karen Moncrieff began her Blue Car odyssey at
Sundance 2002; the film finally opens Friday.
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For the first time, Moncrieff felt in control of her career. The difference is that she now works from the other side of the camera.
Moncrieff's post-Blue Car plans are beginning to solidify. She's already directed an episode of the HBO series Six Feet Under. Later this year, she plans to film her adaptation of the Martin Cruz Smith novel Rose, a historical drama about English coal miners.
Her future looks bright, but, for the time being, Moncrieff remains focused on Blue Car. A promotional trip to Dayton is planned for early June.
She continues to do everything she can to support the film. She's convinced that there's an audience, young and old, desperate for a serious coming-of-age drama like Blue Car. It's the type of movie she wanted to watch while growing up, and now she's made one.
"My family didn't go to the movies a lot," Moncrieff said. "I remember watching The Wonderful World of Disney and The Brady Bunch on TV. I got a steady diet of what the world was supposed to be like. The films that moved me were the older ones like Ordinary People and Kramer vs. Kramer, stories that had something interesting to say about the family dynamic." HOT
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