Written and directed by Broderick's longtime friend Josh Goldin, Wonderful World is a low budget film on very limited release. Its small price tag however belies its true value. With fully realized characters, a quietly powerful plot, and a solid ensemble cast, the full-of-heart film features one of Broderick's most nuanced performances to date.
SuicdeGirls met up with Broderick in a non-descript room at West Hollywood's Standard Hotel, which had been converted into an ad hoc press suite for the day, to talk about this very special movie.
Nicole Powers: You've been doing a lot of press to support the film. I know Josh Goldin is your friend, but your keenness to talk about this film seems to go way beyond that.
Matthew Broderick: I really do like it. Also, because these movies have very little budget for actual advertising, I think it falls on us more to promote them. But I really like the movie, and Josh, we've been friends for 20 years., so it's my pleasure to promote it. It's nice to promote something that you like.
NP: The movie really captures the hopelessness and lack of power that people are feeling right now. Everyone who works for "the man" is expected to give absolute loyalty, but these days there's no expectation that it will be reciprocated. In all the years I've been in America, I've never sensed such a colossal cloud of melancholy hanging over the nation. And with your character, more than "the man," it's that overwhelming sense of melancholy that he's fighting to overcome.
MB: Yeah, I think he is fighting his own melancholy basically. Although he's right about things, he doesn't like positive thinking, which I can sympathize with. But he's also had a lot of things happen that have put him in this mood. He's just been through a divorce, his daughter's at an age when she's separating from him I guess, he's low on money, and his album didn't do very well, so he's had a few blows as the movie begins. I guess in a way it's about him getting his life going again.
NP: In the press notes Josh Goldin talks about how he "wanted to create a movie about a man who saw only the negative side of things." Ben Singer is not a bad man, he's a nice guy whose life is adversely affected by his negative outlook. Much of what you get back from the world is so often based on what you project into it. Obviously you have quite an abundant life, which bodes well for what you're consciously or unconsciously projecting, but did exploring the character of Ben Singer have an affect on how you view your own demeanor?
MB: I don't know. I've thought about that. I'm not so sure how much you can control how you see things. I almost have a feeling that's a genetic thing, whether you see glasses as half empty or half full, or however you want to put it. I try to see things as accurately if possible. I don't want to pretend things are better than they are just because I think that'll make things better. I've never really believed that. But that said, I guess, if you're just hopeless that's very unattractive in a way, and probably will bring hopeless things to you.
I thought of it more when I was doing it as just the story of what's happening between those people. I didn't think about these big themes. I guess I am aware. I try to be positive. I know when I'm working I always try to look at the bright side of things because as soon as you work with people who think everything is doom and gloom it can bring the whole group down. So I definitely try not to be one of those.
NP: It only takes one negatron in the mix to sap everyone's energy.
MB: Well I try not to be a negatron. But, at the same time, if you get so worried about that you might avoid problems or not identify things that need fixing. So I don't want to just always think I've got to like everything because then you'd be in danger of being a crazy person I suppose.
NP: This movie is unusually subtle. There are no Hollywood devices, heavy symbolism or cheesy emotional cues that tell you what you should be thinking. It's actually quite a refreshing mental process, to discover how you feel about something rather than to have your emotion buttons pushed on cue. Did that quality immediately jump off the page when you first read the script? Or was it something that became apparent over the course of production?
MB: Both. It's always difficult to read something and know how it's going to feel when it's done. Knowing Josh so well, it feels like him. That's kind of how he is. He's kind of quiet, but also very, very funny. I think it's funny too. I don't think it's a dismal movie. It's oddly hopeful, at least by the end. The quietness, that's Josh's personality, and his humor. He doesn't hit you over the head with things. It's his style.
NP: So when he tells jokes they creep up on you, and you'll catch them few beats later.
MB: Yes, exactly, or as you're walking home.
NP: And continuing with the gentle tone of the film, in the end nothing dramatic happens, but we see how a slight shift in your character's outlook has a beneficial effect on his life - and those around him. So many movies champion impractical grand gestures, but in this movie, we see how even a small shift, something we can all do, has a beneficial effect.
MB: Yeah. That's well put. I agree with you. That's nice.
Josh has also written millions of screenplays, big studio things. He's rewritten them, so he's constantly having to make things work out better than he thinks the story [should]. He always has to manufacture things. I don't want to spoil it but
NP: The movie deals with the issue of immigration, again in a very subtle way. Ben, who is essentially a nice guy, throws the issue of immigration in his girlfriend Khadi's face. But its another example of how Ben's negative attitude ultimately hurts himself far more than it hurts anyone else. To extrapolate that, do you think perhaps America's increasingly negative attitude towards immigrants is ultimately having an adverse affect on its own citizens?
MB: Probably, yeah. That seems to have been pushed off a bit. I remember last year [it was more of an issue]. We seem to have other problems now that we're obsessing over on the news.
I'm not an expert on the issue, but the idea of building some kind of wall along the border with Mexico, I just think it's such as awful symbol in a way. It sounds like Berlin or something. My grandparents were immigrants and as a New Yorker, I guess, immigration is just all around, and always good.
NP: In the movie Ben feels powerless and, with a failed music career., inconsequential. One of the basic reasons people seek fame, is to be someone that "matters." You came from a theatrical family, and I know you're very much in love with your craft, but having experienced both the extreme positive and extreme negative aspects of fame, what would you say about our culture of fame, and those that crave it without any respect for the process?
MB: They're just a different group than what I was a part of. I mean I suppose everybody sort of wants to be famous. I wouldn't deny that. But really, I loved acting from a pretty young age. Fame is more of a side effect. I mean there are a lot of good things about it, good tables and money and things. But it also can be really lousy.
Also, there was no reality TV when I started. Now there are people who get famous just for being odd - and really famous, like super famous. And I watch those show too.
NP: Which ones?
MB: I mean, I watch some of them. I watch Top Chef. I guess that's not so bad because at least they're cooking something. And my wife [Sarah Jessica Parker] will watch anything to do with buying or selling a house or remodeling a house. It hypnotizes her, so those are on a lot.
NP: Have you had to remodel you wife's closet to pimp it out Sex And The City style to compete with her on screen one?
MB: No, no. We don't have room. We have a pretty big house but we don't have that much closet space.
NP: 'Cause people must have big closet expectations walking into your house after seeing the SATC movie.
MB: For my wife, they do. But all of her professional life is separate. Those clothes are kept under a mountain in Yucca, or something. I don't know where they go. But her closet at home is pretty small actually, for what you would think.
NP: Like Ferris Bueller, Wonderful World is a real feel-good, life-affirming movie. What movies and music give you that feeling?
MB: I just saw Christmas in July, a Preston Sturges movie that I love. It makes me so happy. Louis Armstrong makes me happy. I can't think of anything else.
NP: Wonderful World is a rare film, it's as much a bromance as it is a chick flick, since it explores not only Ben's relationship with Khadi but also his relationship with her brother Ibu. I know in my house we kind of keep score. If I drag my hubby to a chick flick that means he's owed a man movie. Do you have any similar system for ensuring domestic bliss where choice of movies and TV is concerned?
MB: We don't go to the movies that much to tell you the truth. We watch them at home. But, yeah, we do have that. We have that battle over space on the TiVo. Like all the real estate shows, and then there's sports shows of mine, and I'm constantly taping old movies. So you watch which one is about to be deleted because of space, and how much space each member of the couple gets on the DVR. That's our battle.
NP: So your domestic situation would be improved by a bigger hard drive.
MB: Yes it would. [laughs]
