erin_broadley

Stuart Gordon's latest isn't a horror film per se, but it should be close enough to appease the Re-Animator director's most ardent fans. Stuck takes place in an oppressively bleak ghetto-world, where jobs are a soul-crushing grind, where the idea of looking out for anyone but yourself is a sick joke, and where time away from work means losing yourself in whatever drug you can afford. It's in this world that we meet Brandi, a hardened nursing home attendant played by Mena Suvari who has the bad luck to plow into a homeless man with her car while driving home one night. It's what she does next -- drive home with the poor man still lodged in her windshield -- that forms the movie's shocking core. Gordon recently called up SuicideGirls to talk about the film, the true story it's based on, and what drew him to such a dark, sad tale.


Ryan Stewart: Why the decision to hire a white actress, Mena Suvari, to play a character based on an African-American girl?

Stuart Gordon: It came about a couple of ways. When we wrote the script we did not specify as to what nationality she was, you know? We were just looking at it as wanting the audience to feel like, "This could happen to me. This could be me." We didn't want to say, "No, this is about someone else. This is about, you know, an African-American person." Also, Mena was able to read a draft of the script. Her agent had one and she called me up and said, "I want to do this." We had worked together on Edmond and I had a great time working with her. In getting to know Mena, I realized that, unlike a lot of the actresses in Hollywood who are very concerned about being likable and so forth, with their characters, or how they appear on-screen, Mena really likes the dark side. She likes going into the psychology of people who are flawed. So I said, "Great, let's do it together."

RS: You weren't concerned that it might be tough for her to sell a character with a tough background, from the wrong side of the tracks? She's very fresh-faced, Mena.

SG: No, like I said, I worked with her on Edmond and I know how she works and what she responds to. That sort of Hollywood type-casting, I think we're all victims of that. I think Mena really wanted to show that she was capable of doing far more than that.

RS: Once things got rolling on set, did she need much direction from you?

SG: No, she's not needful at all. We did a week of rehearsal before we shot the film and I think everybody understood what they were called upon to do. Every now and then we'd sit down and talk something over, but for the most part everybody was on the same page.

RS: I got a very political vibe from the movie, overall. It seems to take place in a community of strangers, where everyone's mentality is, "Sorry, but I've got my own problems."

SG: You're absolutely right. You got it. I think that's the way things are these days, don't you?

RS: I don't know if they're that bad, but who knows, maybe I'm insulated in the middle class. You see it as being a problem that's affecting the whole country?

SG: I do, you know? I feel like people seem angry. Don't you get the feeling when you're driving your car, that the other drivers are all pissed off? I think it's because of this situation. I think one of the reasons is that people are afraid and I think when you're afraid, then you're really dangerous.

RS: No one even seems to notice her driving around with a man's legs sticking out of her windshield. It's like Communist Russia -- no one sees anything.

SG: That's true. I think one of the ideas of this movie was that everybody is sort of in their own little bubble of self-interest and if it doesn't affect them personally, then it's like, who cares?

RS: Were you sitting on that for a while as an idea for a movie, then this particular story happened to come along?

SG: No, it was funny, I didn't sit down to do a political movie but it became one as I was working on it with John Strysik, the writer. The question that started it all was, "Why would a woman do this?" Here's a woman who works as a care-giver in a senior citizen's home, helping people. Why would she do something like this? So, in exploring that you start trying to answer that question and it starts leading you to other things and the situation that we're all living in right now.

RS: Did you ever find an answer to the question of why she did it -- the woman in the real case?

SG: I would say fear is the answer. She was afraid. She was afraid of getting caught, she was afraid of losing her job, she was afraid of having her future be destroyed. So, you know, she was fighting for her life.

RS: To what extent does that let her off the hook, though? When creating the film character, did you tinker around with making her more and less sympathetic?

SG: Well, I think this is where Mena really came through. She did not play her as a crazy person or as a bad person. She played her, like, this could happen to anyone. This could happen to you. It all sort of starts from this one bad decision that she makes, which is not to take the guy to the hospital. If she had done that, she'd be out. She'd be walking around free today, you know? The guy would be alive. He would have lived, but she made a bad call and then she had to follow through with it. I think that's kind of what you see happening here.

RS: Mena and the actor playing her boyfriend have a noticeably long sex scene in the film. Why did you include that?

SG: The reason was that that's what really happened, actually.

RS: That's a detail from the Mallard case?

SG: It is. As soon as she parked the guy in the garage, she went into the house and had sex with her boyfriend. That really happened. That was one of the things that I found kind of shocking. The things that really happened are far more bizarre than anything you could dream up. You wouldn't expect that that's what she would do, but that's exactly what really happened and the question is, why does she do that? I think it was to escape from this nightmare that she's going through. The reason that the scene is extended is so that she can't escape -- this thing keeps popping into her head. She keeps seeing this guy coming through her windshield. She's having post-traumatic stress syndrome almost, but the boyfriend thinks she's having the time of her life.

RS: Let's talk about the guy in the windshield. Stephen Rea has a difficult part there, where he's playing a man who is wounded and incapacitated -- he has almost no motion for much of the film.

SG: It's a very emotional part. It's a guy who is fighting for his life, really. Initially, he's in tremendous pain. All the way through, actually. From the point of the accident till the end of the film, it's really excruciating, so he had his hands full. If anything, I think it might have been one of the most demanding things he's ever had to do and there were times I think he regretted it, you know? He said, "I know I'm gonna be in this windshield..." but the actual experience of doing it ... he was in that windshield for three weeks, day after day after day and he would have to go through several hours of makeup before he could even be put in the windshield. It was really like he was being tortured, this poor man.

RS: No stunt man for most of that, right?

SG: No, there was very little stunt-work. It was Stephen for most of it.

RS: Stephen has a great moment towards the end that I found interesting, where he makes an offer of truce between his character and Mena.

SG: Well, he's trying to free himself. He's basically saying, "If you'll just let me go, I'm not gonna ever tell anybody what happened." He says, "I don't even know who you are, I don't know where I was ..." which is all true. He's just trying to save himself. At a certain point in the story he realizes that he can't be saved. No one will save him, including her, and the only way he's gonna get out of this thing alive is he's gonna have to save himself.

RS: It never seems to occur to her that she could just let him go and the two of them could get on with their lives.

SG: No, she doesn't see it as in her own self-interest. She believes that she will get into trouble and the only way she can be sure is for him to be dead. That's what it really comes down to, a life or death struggle. Only one of them was going to make it out of that garage alive. In the real story too, that's really what happened. She basically said, "Okay, you're gonna have to die."

RS: That's a sad state of affairs, isn't it?

SG: It's tremendously sad. I feel the way you do, which is why can't we help each other? I'm hoping that with a new administration coming in, things may change. I think one of the reasons people are so pissed off and afraid really starts at the top. We've got a government that has been making us afraid for eight years, doing everything in their power to scare us. I like to think that's what I do for a living, but I'm an amateur compared to these guys. They're making us afraid of each other, pitting us against each other. I think there's a chance that things could change, with new people running our country.

RS: With the Bush administration leaving office, has the window passed for you to make House of Re-Animator? I know you wanted that film to be highly political in nature.

SG: Yeah, it's too late, I think, unfortunately. Or fortunately, is probably a better way to look at it.

RS: Why is that?

SG: Well, we don't have to make that movie. Things are gonna change. Things will improve -- they can't get much worse.

RS: Do you think it's inevitable that you'll return to the Re-Animator series at some point down the road?

SG: Never say never. I was looking forward to working on it again and doing it with the old gang and everybody was coming back to do it. It was really kind of great, so I think at some point we will be able to do that.

RS: What about a remake? Everyone in Hollywood seems to love those these days.

SG: Not me! I'm really tired of these remakes, I don't know about you.

RS: I don't know. If it's better than the original, I guess it's okay.

SG: Yeah, but how many of them are?

RS: Well, none. Eventually, there will be one, right?

SG: Hope springs eternal.


Stuck is in theaters now. For more information, go here.