Writer/director Lee Toland Krieger didn’t have to move Heaven and Earth to get his new independent film “The Vicious Kind” made.
“Everyone has a reason not to make a movie. It could be a Scorsese-DiCaprio film,“ Krieger says. “But in the grand scheme of independent filmmaking it wasn’t that brutal of process.”
By less than brutal, he means he only occasionally wondered if his movie would have enough funding to be completed.
“A couple of nights were among the most miserable of my life. The film was on the verge of falling apart,” Krieger says. “Every film on the indie level is, at one point.”
The movie gods were on his side, and perhaps the indie film deities will align on his behalf March 5. Krieger’s film is up for two Independent Spirit Awards - for Best Screenplay and Best Male Lead, Adam Scott.
Krieger visited the Denver FilmCenter over the weekend to screen “Kind,” a terrific drama about two very different siblings.
Caleb (Scott) is a chain-smoking misanthrope who may be putting the moves on his brother‘s new girlfriend (Brittany Snow). Their unhealthy dynamic adds to the family drama, one set against the family’s blue-collar roots.
Caleb’s father (J.K. Simmons) hasn’t spoken with him in years, and Caleb’s mental grip appears to be weakening with every scene.
Krieger, movie-star handsome in a trendy black leather jacket, looks as if he just left a swanky Sundance party. But attitude is in short supply with this promising filmmaker.
He’s quick to point out the flaws he sees in his new film, and he worries when he doesn’t answer a question to the fullest.
Krieger says Scott, best known for comedic turns in “Step Brothers” and the Starz series “Party Down,” understood the key to “Kind” was finding the humor beneath the bleak scenarios.
“Adam knew it had to be funny, otherwise you wouldn’t want to spend 90 minutes with [Caleb] … or root for him,” Krieger says.
The young filmmaker drew inspiration from films like “Bad Lieutenant” and “Punch Drunk Love,” movies showcasing volatile lead characters who could explode at any moment.
The lead in “Love” would be cowering in tears one moment, “then taking a crow bar to a group of guys and their car the next. What fuels someone like that is so interesting to me,” he says.
Krieger says directing experienced actors like Simmons weighed on his mind before the shoot.
“He’s worked with everybody from Sam Raimi to the Coen brothers. What the hell do I have to tell him about turning in a performance?” he asks.
But he recalled asking Joe Wright (“Atonement”) just such a question when the director visited his campus while Krieger was studying film at the University of Southern California.
Wright, who had just worked with Dame Judi Dench on “Pride and Prejudice,” told him, “99.9 percent of actors wanted to be directed, to have a third party watching over them,” he recalls. “Ultimately their concern is this character, and they leave it to you to make sure this character fits into the patchwork of this film.”
“The Vicious Kind,” by its creator’s own admission, isn’t a commercial film.
“It’s not going to be a ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ even if it was executed perfectly, which it isn’t,” he says.
Krieger, whose next feature will be the music drama “The Darling Brothers,” says in today’s movie climate it’s hard than ever to get people to give smaller films a chance.
“It’s the filmmakers’ responsibility to hustle and do [the promotion] yourself,” he says. “At the end of the day nobody cares about this film as much as we do.”
(Photo: Promising young writer/director Lee Toland Krieger)
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