An Interview With The Talent Behind RE: UNITING At The Austin Film Festival

Cinema Scholars interviews Re: Uniting writer/director Laura Adkin as well as costars Bronwen Smith and Michelle Harrison at this year’s Austin Film Festival. 

Introduction

Films that revolve around reunions are ripe with possibilities. A group of friends and/or family gathering after years apart can end in a variety of ways, but often the outcome is dramatic. Whether the purpose for coming together is for a holiday, wedding, funeral, or class reunion, the convergence of different quirky characters and their intersecting backstories proves time and time again to be a fascinating when done correctly. Especially when the naturally high tension and volatile emotions start to mount.

In Laura Adkin’s latest dramedy, Re: Uniting, a group of college friends assemble twenty-five years after graduation to rekindle their friendship and face the massive challenges that come with middle age.

Rachel and Michael have summoned their college besties to join them at their gorgeous oceanside home for a twenty-fifth reunion. As the friends reply on a group text, each are observed during their daily slogs. There’s Collin, the celebrity of the crew who is navigating a new gig. Alongside him, OG college buddy and manager, Danny, an eternal Lothario is still at his side. Then there’s Carrie, the frazzled working mom who has spent most of the past quarter-century looking after others.

Last but not least, Natalie is the cool, unattached neurosurgeon who might be too smart for her own good. When the crew eventually joins Rachel and Michael, the college sweethearts who seem to have it all, old stories and new revelations make them consider life and death in a whole new way.

Re: Uniting is the epitome of a great character-driven ensemble drama. No surprise, since Adkin is a prolific actress herself, appearing in numerous films and TV series since the early 2000s. This knowledge and appreciation for performers and their process comes through loud and clear in the various dialogue-heavy scenes.

The plot and pacing in similar movies sometimes get lost in the exposition. But Adkin perfectly times the drama in a way that not only breaks up the serious moments, it also helps accentuate their effect. As a result, you feel as though you really get to know these characters through stories from the past as well as current-day issues. This culminates in a story where you care about each player equally. 

Adkin’s care with balance and pacing also pays off when a tonal shift occurs in the third act. That rapport and investment with the characters tempers the seriousness. Which helps the sudden turn feel real and not too melodramatic. With knock-out performances by the entire cast, every character cycles through a myriad of emotions. Each display carries a lot of weight, yet the histrionics serve to make the characters even more relatable and never over-indulgent.

To spoil the gravity in the outcome of Re: Uniting would be a terrible disservice. So let’s just say that Adkin faces the unfairness of life and death head-on from several angles with unflinching detail and bittersweet sadness.

Cinema Scholars’ Rebecca Elliott recently caught up with Re: Uniting writer/director Laura Adkin as well as costars Michelle Harrison (Rachel) and Bronwen Smith (Carrie) at the Austin Film Festival. The trio discuss shooting during the pandemic, an actor’s insight with writing/directing, and scrambling to film a pair of humpback whales on B roll.

Note: Re: Uniting is a Canadian independent film outside SAG jurisdiction. This interview was edited for clarity.

Interview

Rebecca Elliott:

Hi guys. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy festival schedule to chat with me about Re: Uniting. The film covers so much ground, but I want to go back to the very first frame. Which starts with Montel Jordan’s “This Is How You Do It.” 

Laura Adkin:

[singing] This Is How You Do It.

Rebecca Elliott:

PS. I’m exactly the age of all the characters in the film. And that song just evokes such an immediate 90s time stamp. So can you talk about going 25 years into the future versus, ten or 15? It seems like the 25 year point is a whole different dynamic. 

Laura Adkin:

I want to set every movie I ever make in the 90s. Just the music is great, everything’s great. But with this in particular, I worked backwards. I was like, well, what do I have access to? What story do I want to tell?

And so the story that I wanted to tell was this particular age group. So just doing the math, it had to be 25 years. It didn’t make sense doing anything else. This particular age group is really interesting to me, especially for women. Because of the motherhood question. At this point, if you haven’t done it yet, it’s almost too late. If not too late. But also with Bronwen’s character being a mother her whole life and then now not knowing what to do next.

It felt like the perfect age for that second coming of age. When you’re 18, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. And then you kind of do whatever you’re going to do. Then you have that reassessment again in middle age.

Rebecca Elliott:

It’s also that time of life where often we’re dealing with aging parents at the same time as kids. And then around that age is when you’re really reassessing your life. Like, what have I done? Or where am I going? So you really nailed that. I liked the 25 years later. Re: Uniting is such a true ensemble, too. Everyone gets their chance to shine and has their own subplot, if you will. Bronwen and Michelle, what did you guys think when you first read the script? What initially drew you into the story and to your characters?

Michelle Harrison:

Well, for me, I think the struggle of a mother deciding to make the choice that Rachel makes. So, I pushed up against Laura about this for a long time. I really, really struggled with it. Because I can’t imagine making that decision as a mother. Not being able to see your children grow up, not being there for them. So all of that to me was really interesting even though I really pushed back against it.

I was like, this doesn’t feel good. I’m going to have to work through this. This is going to be a very interesting movie for me to work on. And I have children and I am this age. Also we’re at this age where you’re supposed to have everything figured out. And in some ways I’m very similar to Rachel. I have the house, I have the kids, I have the dog. And then now I’m looking at this middle aged part of life coming up. We’ve chased all of our dreams. Now what? 

Like you said, aging parents. And then you look around at all your friends who have very different lives than you. Everyone has made the right choice for where they are and it looks so different for everybody. And everyone has things that they struggle with and everyone has things that they’re really happy and love and excited about. So for me representing one piece of that puzzle was really interesting to me.

Rebecca Elliott:

With all the different personalities it’s impossible not to have a little bit of FOMO. The grass is always greener for everyone. Every character has that moment where it’s like, well, you have it better than me. Or I have it worse. I think I’ve had some of those conversations with my friends before too, so that also grabbed me. Bronwen, your character experiences that. Tell me about what drew you to the story initially

Bronwen Smith:

Well, Carrie’s life is not at all like my life. I don’t have kids. My husband and I are free and easy, and I can do whatever I want. So it’s not the same track that way. But I think like with anybody, the feeling that you haven’t lived up to your full potential and where have you stopped yourself? And that FOMO feeling of seeing what other people have. So I can relate to that. Did we make the wrong choice by not really trying to have kids and missing out on that experience and stuff?

So there’s always like you said, the grass is always greener. And so we’re always reaching for that. I also really exploring the idea of the friends we make, and how they shift and change over time. But there’s still this port of connection that’s interesting to me. I loved exploring that. That sort of Big Chill aspect.

Michelle Harrison:

And that friendship thing doesn’t happen very often.

Bronwen Smith:

No.

Michelle Harrison:

A lot of people haven’t been able to hang on to those relationships. People change so much, right?

Bronwen Smith:

How odd it feels when you do see each other again. This sort of embarrassment and shame of where you’re at. And then wanting to show that I did change somehow. And then you realize you didn’t.

Rebecca Elliott:

There’s nothing like old friends. I’m very lucky that I’m still really close with high school girlfriends. We always have a group text going. So much of that also struck a chord with me. Did you base any of the characters in Re: Uniting on people in your own life or even yourself?

Laura Adkin:

No, I don’t think so. It’s like I said in an interview yesterday. If you’re friends with the writer, you will end up on the screen. It just what happens. So I think it’s a culmination of a lot of different people and a lot of different things that I’ve heard. And things that I’ve seen and different people’s lives.

One of the lines in the film is an actual line that someone in my life said. It was the one about not realizing a human being could experience so much pain in childbirth and not die. That’s actually something I’ve used. And I haven’t had children, but I was just like, that’s such a great line. I’m using it in a movie.

Rebecca Elliott:

I mean, we naturally draw from the people around us and stuff. So I was curious if there were any proxies in there.

Laura Adkin:

Actually, the character of Danny is played by my husband. So I feel like maybe that’s who David would have become had he not had children and had he not met me. That is sort of what I’ve heard. He was kind of like Danny, and then he had kids. And that was my imagination of what David would have been like. But nobody else is based on anyone.

Rebecca Elliott:

I’m such a location nerd, so I always ask these questions. You filmed most of Re: Uniting at this gorgeous waterfront home. Obviously, locations inform the story, but it also informs performances and chemistry. Can you talk about finding that location and shooting there together?

Laura Adkin:

I always knew that I wanted to film on Bowen Island. Michelle lives on Bowen. My mom lives on Bowen. And so Bowen Island is just…how big is it?

Michelle Harrison:

It’s forty-five hundred people. You take a twenty minute ferry to get there. It’s like everybody knows each other. Kids hitchhike. It’s beautiful. There’s no traffic lights. You don’t lock your car. It’s just a super small town.

Laura Adkin:

And you can get to downtown Vancouver in less than an hour, including the ferry. So it’s like this really amazing, beautiful place that we could get to in order to shoot. And I knew that doing my first feature, I needed it to be somewhere with a supportive community.

It needed to be somewhere where we could get local people doing the food and everyone being excited and working with the municipality. The person that did the permits for us is my mom’s neighbor. And they would go walk over to my mom and just be like, oh, I can’t get a hold of Laura, but here’s her permit.

Rebecca Elliott:

It wasn’t an endless email thread or something. It was actually talking to a human in-person.

Laura Adkin:

And the fact that we ended up shooting it during the pandemic. When I was writing it in 2019, that was not in my mind. And that, of course, happened. But it worked out so well because we were able to go and kind of isolate on this island. We also were able to give back to the community because we had a travel ban at that time.

So we could only go over there because we were working. But there was no tourism happening. All the Airbnbs, all of the cabins and stuff that normally would be rented at that time, nobody was going there. So we were able to put a lot of money into the community, which was really nice.

Rebecca Elliott:

Did that sense of all being together in this one place inform or affect your performances? Did it help? Or was that more challenging?

Bronwen Smith:

My character, her opportunity to get away from the drudgery of her life and go somewhere as beautiful and serene as Bowen. I mean, it was easy. Like, there was no acting required. Just looked around me and it was there. It was wonderful. And then it also helped to know that we were in this small area. That drew us even closer together and gave us a sense of what’s in the film itself and the story.

Michelle Harrison:

Because everyone is coming to the island but Rachel’s already there. It was magical. Summer camp is how I always describe it. And for me, I got to drive home to my family at the end of the night, which never happens. But it just felt like we were living in this beautiful little community altogether.

Bronwen Smith:

So grateful, especially during the pandemic, to go somewhere other than see people and hang out and work my apartment.

Rebecca Elliott:

I’m curious, when you first read the script, did you identify with other characters aside from the one you ended up playing? Or were you dead-set on the character that you were reading for?

Michelle Harrison:

Well, Laura sent the script and said read for Rachel. But I did identify in other ways, of course.

Bronwen Smith:

Laura and I were in conversation. She would give me updates, and I’m like, keep writing, monkey, okay? Keep going.

Rebecca Elliott:

So, Laura, you are an actress as well. I’m always fascinated when actors get behind the camera and how that informs your directing style.

Laura Adkin:

It informs my writing as well as my directing. And as a writer, what I can do is I trust actors. I know that they will do what’s needed to be done so I don’t have to over-write a scene. So I don’t have to write massive exposition or tell them what to do on a certain thing. I’m going to trust that they’re going to take this thing and they’re going to do something bigger and better with it.

I personally don’t create backstories for characters because what they are going to create is so much more interesting. I’m going to give them enough information so that they know where their character is now. Then they can go back and create something. I don’t need to know about it. It’s weird for me to be like, so when you were three years old, this thing happened. So it definitely informs my writing in that way. 

And then as a director, it’s like, I know what I would want on set. I know the kind of communication I would want. And so I try to have a set that is full of people that aren’t assholes. If you can write that. But that’s so important. You’re trying to create a safe space for actors to be open and vulnerable.

Half the time when you’re on set, everyone’s yelling at each other and everyone’s stressed out. So even conversations with my AD like, we’re going to be doing a really intimate scene today. When you yell cut, we’re just going to bring it all down. Our energy is going to bring it down.

Rebecca Elliott:

That’s really fascinating. Because you know what it takes to pull the emotion in. And it doesn’t help when somebody’s just, like, really loud.

Laura Adkin:

And I think one of the other things that’s really important that I learned on this movie- in particular when I was like, oh, God. I made a movie with six main characters. A very important part of directing is to get to know each of your actors as human beings and what they need. Because all actors are different. All people are different in what they need to be able to give their best performances, right? Like the kind of support, the kind of thing that they need.

[to Harrison] I hope you don’t mind if I say this. So I would know if Michelle was happy with the take or not. And I learned that pretty quick. Even if I was happy with the take, if I saw that she wasn’t happy, I’d just be like, you know what? I think we’re going to go again. And I would make a little look. But I would make it about me, not about her. And I think those little things of paying attention to what people need, I think that’s so important.

Rebecca Elliott:

I feel like most directors should take a turn in front of the camera at some point.

Bronwen Smith:

Find out what each other is up against and what the job is. Then we can be better collaborators.

Rebecca Elliott:

Exactly. It’s just better teamwork. [to Smith and Harrison] You two have had pretty prolific careers, and I’m sure you’ve worked with all kinds of directors. So how does working with an actor-turned-director help you in your performance?

Michelle Harrison:

With Laura? Well, we already, off the bat, already had a relationship, partly half the battle. When you start working with somebody, it’s figuring out this sort of marriage of how things are going to work. And also how your director works, right? Also, do I feel safe on the set? To be vulnerable, to try things, to speak up when I think something doesn’t make sense? And as soon as that’s established, all bets are off. We had that from even before the read through with Laura.

I think this idea of trusting your actors goes a long way, because as soon as you feel that from a director, then you feel safe. The director can instill their ideas and thoughts. Then you’re sort of working collaboratively as a team, which really is the best. That’s what you want. You don’t want to be working alone in your little space.

Rebecca Elliott:

With someone barking at you. 

Michelle Harrison:

You want to be working with your partner. And you want to be having the director throw in ideas. You want the DP to be part of that dance too.

Bronwen Smith:

100%. I think it’s understanding what is the best environment for an actor to do their best work. But also not treating us like precious little creatures. Having that familiarity made it comfortable. Because sometimes the director is so thoughtless about what we’re doing and how vulnerable we need to be.

And other times they’re overcompensating for that. Then that’s also disorienting because you’re like, please don’t treat me like a special little creature. So can we strike that balance? And Laura certainly had that because she knows what it’s like and she’s our friend. And so it was just about respect and collaboration.

Michelle Harrison:

And Laura’s a hard worker. And cool as a cucumber even if that’s not on the inside.

Laura Adkin:

I mean, I’m in the bathroom crying, I know you guys have no idea. And when I come out?

Rebecca Elliott:

You keep it totally profesh. Re: Uniting takes a super heavy turn. Without getting too spoilery, how do you devise that shift without it being too jarring. From the fun reunion type flick to then this more serious story about questions of life and death. How intentional were you about your timing and how you sort of led up to that? There’s a couple of little hints obviously going into it. So it’s like, okay, something else is going on here. Was that in the writing process, or did you find that in post?

Laura Adkin:

When you get into the edit, it becomes a completely different movie. I think some of the ideas that I had going in didn’t work as well as I thought. And I realized that I did need more tension between Michelle and Jessie’s [L Martin] character. So we were able to create that in the edit, which worked really well.

And I knew that I needed to have irreverent humor throughout the whole thing. So even when it does get heavy, there’s still funny things that happen. And I think that’s really important because I think sometimes the funniest things happen when you’re in the midst of the most traumatic thing. That’s human. Right? So I wanted that arc. The way that we shot it kind of allowed us to go closer and closer and closer until we were at that moment.

Michelle Harrison:

I think to start off with, it was because you think Rachel and Michael are just fighting, right. So that’s all layered all the way through. And a lot of that storyline changed a little bit. We were much more connective in the original script and then that kind of broke down. That changed during shooting, right?

Laura Adkin:

Things do have to adjust and change when you’re in the moment, right? Because sometimes things don’t work. We completely reshot the scene between Rachel and Carrie on the cliff because we shot it and then I watched it. And I was like, this is not working. It’s not working at all. So I rewrote the entire scene and we reshot it. And the fact that we cut that cut together the way that it did was like incredible.

The humpback whale thing was so crazy. We were shooting B roll, and all of a sudden there was a mama and a baby humpback whale. And I say to my DP, run the camera! He’s like, I’m on the wrong lens! I don’t care! Oh, my God. I knew that I needed to use that shot in that scene, but it was a total accident that that happened.

Rebecca Elliott:

I love it. Perfect kismet. Well, I think I’ve taken up too much of your time, you guys! But thank you so much for sitting down to talk with me about Re: Uniting. I hope you have a good fest.

Michelle Harrison:

You too.

Laura Adkin:

Thank you for your questions!

Bronwen Smith:

Thank you.

Re: Uniting is screening as an Official Selection at this year’s Austin Film Festival. Stay tuned for a release date for the ensemble drama.

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