I'm TOTALLY FINE available now on digital and on demand

Greetings, dear human beings! Today I'd like to share with you an adorable movie released earlier this month called I'M TOTALLY FINE by director Brandon Dermer, written by Alisha Ketry, starring Natalie Morales and Jillian Bell. The film tells the story of Vanessa (Bell) who goes on a solo ride to help cope with the absence of her friendly friend and business partner Jennifer (Morales) easier to go back to head to head with Jennifer…or at least one touring alien who took on his appearance. It's a crazy premise, and one might want to believe it creates a crazy story, but what I discovered while watching the film was much more human, familiar, and touching. It's the same, I should download, snort out loud humorous.

Watch the trailer:

Working for this outlet gives me the opportunity to watch a number of independent films, and in general I find that I need to change the way I watch these films. I compare it to Vonnegut's brief tale "Harrison Bergeron" in that I will see the film through its handicaps: no price range, no script docs, no actors, that kind of element, to try to find the price inside. Once in a while, though, I'll have a movie on my table, it's just great; a simply enthralling viewing experience that desires no filters or handicaps. I'M TOTALLY FINE is such a film.

The speech is remarkable without being flowery. A standout line from a sweet moment in the movie that I consider changed to "How does it feel to feel all the emotions?" Taken out of context, I can see how silly it sounds, but in the movie, it works really, really well. The chemistry that Bell and Morales convey to Vanessa and Not-Jennifer feels real, as do the emotional and comedic beats. The film is indeed sparse, so much so that the assistant cast waltzes in and out of the film's run to get closer to ideal utility. Harvey Guillén turns out to be a comical cheat code once again, much like he did to animate WEREWOLVES WITHIN.

I had the chance to chat with screenwriter Alisha Ketry and star Jillian Bell about this little film born out of the boredom and isolation of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic.

Eric McClanahan - Tell me about the scripting of this film. I watched it about a month ago and was blown away by the loud comedic bits and lots of heart. Where does this come from?

Alisha Ketry - So this is basically COVID. It escalated to the height of fear and things came to a halt and Brandon the manager and I had been friends for a long time and we each lamented the things we wanted to do in the company and a majority of those plans that we had [had been hijacked]; we had a friend's wedding that was called off. This type of item. Everyone has been transformed by experiencing the loss of something. Or a person. And it became his personal kind of grieving process. You had to mourn all the initiatives you lost and the projects were canceled, and we had no idea how long it was going to last. It became uncertain. We talked about that pretty much and Brandon had the germ of an idea; he wanted to write a story about a lady who loses her great boyfriend and their plans, their plans for life together, are canceled. We talked about it, we were going to write it on specs together, after which Brandon started talking with Kyle Newacheck about "What We Do in the Shadows" and "Workaholics" about making it on Zoom, like an industrial or something like that . Brandon is this enthusiastic, passionate guy and he was talking to Kyle about the concept that he morphed into going to write with me and Kyle morphed into, "I get it! I relate to this. I want in!" So from there, it became this aspect where, instead of being written about specs, we were writing with a bit of luck to shoot and produce it quickly. With that, we could jump on Zoom and talk about our lives and pretty much communicate that feeling, and then I'd go off and write the definition and they'd provide notes and identical to the actual script; I had a blast and wrote it, then Kyle gave the script to Jillian who wanted to do something with Natalie, and then it happened to miraculously fall into the area and we were able to shoot it.

EM - So where does the extraterrestrial detail come from? It's such an interesting approach to loss and reconnection.

AK - Brandon and I are fans of weird sci-fi stuff. He'll let you in on his favorite 80s movies and one of my favorite movies is MARS ATTACKS! So we kind of have an affinity for scifi detail. We definitely wanted to tell a story about "what if you had forty-eight hours with someone you lost?" and this form has emerged as a way to make that viable.

EM - The script works great as it is very sparse. It's pretty much just the two tracks, so it's very conversational and lets you plumb the depths of friendship. Would you say it turned into a derivative of being able to get your ideas off Brandon and Kyle?

AK - Just have both actors? Yes, so we clearly wanted to tell the story of friendship, and in particular friendship between women, and that became very important to me. But it has also become a derivative of COVID. We had to write something very clear because we weren't allowed to enter a large group and the two turned into its own set of boundaries. But yeah, Brandon, Kyle and I are just sentimental people who cost our friendships so it became so easy for the 3 of us to open up, even though I didn't even understand Kyle, we didn't we weren't met before we were given to the set, and because of that safe space and how raw we all were at the time, it's become so clean to tell our stories and talk about our friendships and finding that dating through each other and then positioned them in the personas of Vanessa and Jenifer.

EM - Did it start as a comedy and become more heartfelt or did it start as a drama and end up as something more comedic?

AK - It started sincerely with more heart, then we watched the comedy in it. What is my favorite way of noting. I always want to jot down something of an emotional element or a common topic, first and important, after which discovering the comedy in that, which most comedy writers or even human beings in their life discover, you have to sniff when things are horrible.

EM - Yeah, I guess 2020 really taught us that.

AK - Yeah!

EM - Now I know you've worked in TV, specifically "American Dad", but I can't believe this is your first feature length storyline, maybe just the first we have seen. What else do you have in the pipeline?

AK - Yes, this is the first script produced, and my heart is on TV. I really like working in television, I grew up on television. It was the main function I had for writing and filming, it's crazy. I have a Mercury in Retrograde script, a disaster comedy, that I'm trying to make accessible, and I'm super excited. I need to discover extraordinary thoughts. I'm definitely into MIDSOMMAR and SMILE, which are each very dark, and I'm like, "Ooo, should I write a thriller now?" I feel like the international could be very open, so that's where I am.

EM - That idea of ​​Mercury stuck in retrograde or your satisfying friend who died and was replaced by an alien; these are big problems. In which authors do you find suggestions for such massive topics?

AK - You realize, I guess the main display that I watched that honestly blew my mind became a Bryan Fuller display called "Dead Like Me". Do you remember?

EM - Oh yeah.

AK – Right at the beginning, right? It blew my thoughts. I realized you can write something that has this massive topic and make it [personal]. In fact, you should do whatever you want! This is the component about writing. It turned into a great thought for me to explore my voice as an author. This show changed to transform what a grim reaper is into a very human thing, which had a huge impact on what I wanted to write and how I became aware of my voice. One designer I really like is Issa Rae. "Insecure" is this type of grounded display. It doesn't seem to be, like, landing exactly right, but I honestly guess she's capable of writing such heartbreaking emotional testimonials while being character-driven comedy and just completely silly bits, and my "dad American" the comedic aspect could be very in very if...