Fort Tilden Press Kit

A comedy about Allie and Harper and their needlessly difficult journey

to the beach.

The debut feature film of directors Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers – and showcasing the comedic versatility of Clare McNulty and Bridey Elliott as Allie and Harper – “Fort Tilden” is a hilariously insightful and recognizable look at the consequences of extended adolescence.

Grand Jury Award Winner, Narrative Feature SXSW - 2014

Winner Special Jury Prize, Best Narrative Feature Independent Film Festival, Boston - 2014

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filmswelike Page 1 of 15

SYNOPSIS:

Fort Tilden: New York City’s secluded seaside nirvana where, like flies to honey, Brooklyn’s hip millennial set flocks on sweltering weekend afternoons for unbridled summertime indulgence. Amidst the vexing stagnation of quarter-life crises, Allie (Clare McNulty) struggles to prepare for the Peace Corps, while Harper (Bridey Elliott) awaits checks from her father to fund her artistic dreams. But the two friends quickly shun responsibilities for the day when a pair of good-looking guys invites them along for a carefree Fort Tilden afternoon. As the two young women board their fixed-gear bicycles and embark on a lengthy journey to the beach, they quickly realize that, akin to their confusing, transitioning lives, they neither know where they’re going nor how they plan to get there.

About FORT TILDEN

Not everyone’s good at accomplishing things. Some people know a lot about some things, others know a little about a lot of things. Some people don’t really know much at all, but are good at making you think they do. You wanna follow them. To the beach.

In the Spring of 2013, former NYU Film School pals SARAH-VIOLET BLISS and CHARLES ROGERS had been tossing around some ideas for a possible web series. One such story involved two unaccomplished Brooklyn 20-something girls who decide to take a trip on bikes from Williamsburg to Fort Tilden, the latest hip-place-to-go for Brooklynites.

“We’ve taken the trip out to Fort Tilden,” Rogers explains. “On the one hand, it shouldn’t be that hard of a trip. But on the other hand, it can be. And there’s a lot of comedic potential – two characters on a very simple journey, but they complicate it for themselves. They’re two very flawed characters trying to do something that shouldn’t be so hard.”

Apparently, this concept isn’t all that far-fetched. “Everyone seems to have a horror story about trying to get to Fort Tilden,” Bliss laughs, Rogers adding, “Most of the stories involve people not getting there.” A friend of Bliss’s had, in fact, attempted such a trip by bicycle, her boyfriend’s tires blowing out while going over the Marine Parkway Bridge, requiring the two to try to find someone with a car to rescue them. “And that’s very hard to find in New York City,” she says. “It was a long day for them, sweating and never getting to Fort Tilden. So what started off as a really fun, romantic idea ended up being a nightmare” – and a seed for a ridiculous adventure, which the two filmmakers decided to build into a feature film, their first.

filmswelike Page 2 of 15 Rogers and Bliss sat down with another former NYU friend, Brian Lannin (whom Bliss had known since her earliest days at the school, and would eventually act as cinematographer for FORT TILDEN) and outlined the idea for the movie together. Much of the writing involved recording conversations the three had together while talking over ideas. “We just talked and talked, until we finally felt like we were getting into the points of view of these characters,” Rogers recalls. “There’s a lot of Sarah-Violet and myself in both of these people, for better or worse,” he laughs.

The story revolves around two young women, Allie and Harper, who share an apartment in Williamsburg. Allie has an apparently upbeat attitude and is getting ready to run off to the Peace Corps to serve in Liberia. Her roomie, Harper, is a budding artist with a sardonic sense of humor, and, not being quite at the point of selling any of her “art,” is financially dependent on her wealthy father . Neither has managed to accomplish much thusfar, but nonetheless require a day off.

To play Allie, Bliss turned to an acting friend from her undergraduate days at Oberlin College, CLARE McNULTY, whom Bliss had featured in a number of short films. “What Clare can do on camera is unique and very true to herself,” the director notes. “She’s hilarious, in a straight man way. Her humor comes out because she’s just being so honest about how anyone would act in a certain situation.” It probably didn’t hurt that the film’s sense of humor was a familiar one, McNulty says. “I thought Allie was very funny in a very Sarah-Violet and Charles kind of way. You can see them both in these characters.”

When she first read the script, McNulty felt an immediate connection to Allie. “I identified with her – pretty hard,” the actress says. “I felt like the dynamic between her and Harper was a familiar one, for me and my life. I felt a lot of empathy for her.” Allie’s rudderless life stood out. “She lacks confidence. I think she’s directionless, almost passionless. She can’t figure out where to put her passion or her desires. I went through so many periods of my life where I didn’t know what I wanted. And I think Allie just has no idea what she wants.”

An extended trip to Africa, courtesy of the Peace Corps, is probably not a reality for Allie, though she likes to think it is. “Her whole M.O. is wanting to appear as if she’s taking control of her life, but she really has no idea what she wants to do,” Bliss explains. “It doesn’t seem like the Peace Corps is really a good fit for her. It’s just some path she can cling to and that she can tell people that that’s what her pursuits are. It really doesn’t seem like she’s thought it out well enough.”

“It’s a badge of honor,” McNulty adds. “This generation, we’re always trying to top each other. Everybody’s just trying to say that they’re doing something. It’s nice to be able to say that you’re going to the Peace Corps, because it implies so many things about you: you’re responsible, that you care about the world, that you’re courageous, idealistic and driven. And it’s not that she’s none of those things. She wants to be those things. But it’s really just a distraction for her, to take her attention off of thinking about what she’s good at, what she’s not good at, and what makes her happy.”

filmswelike Page 3 of 15 While she is supposed to be spending the day in preparation for her imminent departure to Liberia (which everyone keeps warning her is far from a safe place to go), she has blown off her commitments to head to the beach. Allie is constantly reminded of that fact, however, by her Peace Corps contact, a crabby, no- nonsense woman named Cabiria (played over the phone by ALLYSON KAYE DANIEL), who doesn’t buy any of Allie’s b.s. excuses.

“Cabiria is someone who doesn’t take any shit,” Bliss says. “Allie lies and says that she’s sick, and Cabiria can tell when someone’s lying to her.” Adds Rogers, “Allie’s afraid of confrontations – and Cabiria is a woman of confrontations.” The character’s name comes from a friend of Bliss’s, who was named for the Fellini film, Nights of Cabiria. “My friend is actually the exact opposite of the character – she’s very sweet and nice!” she laughs.

Casting the bitingly comedic Harper took some care on Bliss and Rogers’ part. “We were having trouble finding somebody to play her, because it’s such a specific role,” says Rogers. “There’s a danger in miscasting that role, because she says so many awful things about other people throughout the whole movie that you could easily end up not liking her, which we didn’t want. You identify with aspects of her points of view about other people throughout the movie. So it was important to find somebody who has a sweet nature.”

The two became aware of BRIDEY ELLIOTT through the comedy world, and when they began watching videos of her online, knew they had found their Harper. “She’s sweet, and she’s pretty weird,” Rogers laughs. “A lot of Harper’s insults are not just your average insults. There’s also something bizarre and creative about the things that she says, and Bridey could pull that off.”

“They contacted me on my birthday and said they had seen some videos of mine at the UCB Theater,” the actress recalls. “I met with them at the Ace Hotel a few weeks later, and just thought they were really delightful people. I read the script, and I just laughed out loud. And all of the pitfalls of being young and in the city definitely spoke to me.”

Harper’s complexity was also appealing to the actress. “She’s very smart and sharp, but I think she lacks a confidence in herself that she takes out on other people,” Elliott says. Like Allie, she’s insecure, but internalizes it through false confidence. “She doesn’t believe in herself enough, and she overcompensates by being this sort of ‘leader’ asshole to Allie, because it’s all the control she has.” Harper abounds with impulsive ideas – like going to the beach when there’s things to do – something which Allie quietly finds appealing, Rogers notes. “Allie resists Harper’s ideas because they’re impulsive, but ultimately always goes along with them – not just becomes she’s the more submissive one, but also because she secretly enjoys the stuff that Harper likes, but doesn’t want to admit it.”

The girls, particularly Harper, are immensely – and hilariously – judgmental of others, particularly anyone daring to risk expressing themselves artistically. “We wanted a character who’s constantly judging other

filmswelike Page 4 of 15 people, but too afraid to actually pursue her own work, probably because she’s afraid that people will talk about her the way she talks about them,” Bliss says of Harper.

“She’s always gotten what she wanted, and has never had to push herself,” Elliott informs. “Her fear of risk comes from never having to push herself in any way towards anything she wants. She doesn’t trust herself or like risks that might blow up in her face. It’s enough for her to just talk about these ideas she’ll never do, and then shit on these people who actually have the courage to do them, no matter how flawed they are.”

Any dork who fails to live up to perfection is immediately given a “300 years ago, there was a girl named. . .” tale from Harper, explaining how the world will forget them. “Because of Harper’s artistic insecurities, she has this hope she will have achieved greatness in some way by the end of her life,” explains Rogers. “So the way she frames other people is to think about them as though she’s looking back from the future 300 years from now and whether or not they really amounted to anything in hindsight.” Adds Elliott, “She also just likes being the authority on these people’s lives, whomever she deems as morons.”

Both women have their own ideas about what it is to be cool and how to conduct themselves that way – though neither is necessarily living them out. “Harper is somebody who considers herself the life of the party, but isn’t necessarily the life of the party,” Rogers notes. “Neither of them are living out their idea of cool. They just kind of live in this big apartment by themselves and depend on each other.”

Making FORT TILDEN

Bliss and Rogers began the process of creating FORT TILDEN at the end of May 2013, when they conceived the idea, wrote until July, and were in pre-production until August, eventually filming over a three week period from August 25th to September 16th. “Within the hour of thinking up the idea,” Rogers recalls, “we decided that we would make this feature by the end of the summer.”

The film was shot essentially in continuity, from beginning to end. In terms of production, besides telling the story of the girls’ circuitous trip, the filmmakers’ main goal was to capture as much of the character – and characters – of Brooklyn as possible. Bliss, a Brooklyn native herself, knew of the types of iconic places that mostly only residents know. Though Rogers had lived there for five years himself, he notes, “There’s something nice about the fact that I’m not from Brooklyn and S-V is. Because you get the impression that Allie is probably not from New York, but Harper has spent a lot of time there, and that’s something that creates an interesting balance.”

Indeed, Elliott notes a similarity in her own upbringing to Harper’s. “I am from New York, raised in Connecticut,” she says. “I have an upbringing similar to Harper’s, sort of one of privilege – pristine Connecticut, and then going back to the city,” where she attended Brooklyn College. “I’m in Brooklyn all

filmswelike Page 5 of 15 the time. But when I was little, I just wanted to come into the city from the suburbs. But once you’re there, in Times Square, for instance, the whole realization that you’re in a big city happens. And I think that’s what happens to Harper and Allie. These two girls have been playing house for so long, and then they’re like, ‘We’re going to meet some guys.’ But then they have the realization, ‘Oh, shit – we don’t know how to do this.’”

Visually, Bliss and Rogers worked closely with DP Brian Lannin to capture the city in a way not often seen in film. “Something that was important to Brian and to us was to find a way to shoot New York in a new way, which isn’t really very easy to figure out how to do.” The filmmakers took advantage of the way in which the story unfolds as the two girls make their journey, to reveal different parts of the city. “That was something that was exciting to Brian, as a cinematographer. You want to shoot their experience of luxurious and comfortable Williamsburg in a certain way, but then it’s a very different world when they arrive suddenly in unfamiliar territory, where things are more dangerous to them. The camera changes the way it emphasizes where they are graphically throughout the film.” The nicer neighborhoods have a warm feel, while after their arrival in Fort Tilden, things are much colder.”

The girls share an unusual apartment, one with a large, open common living room area, with two upstairs bedrooms on either side, each reached by its own stair. Bliss and Rogers found the location, in Bushwick, during an internet search. “It couldn’t have been a better location for us, between the enormous windows and the multi-level design,” Rogers states. “Harper can do what she does creatively, even if she isn’t a real artist. It really brought to life the luxuriousness of these girls’ lives.”

Notes Bliss, “One of the major things that made it right for us was the fact that their rooms are symmetrical, and it’s beautifully codependent in that way.” Elliott agrees. “It really spells out their relationship, with their rooms so side by side,” she says. “The ceilings are so low – it’s just a bed, and it kind of feels like a little dollhouse up there. It was just so strange to live up that ladder like that every day. It was like a little tree house, for little kids in a bunk bed.”

Equally childlike is the girls’ apparel, donated by Claire Harlam, one of the film’s producers. “She had two rompers,” Rogers recalls. “We laid them out and asked ourselves, ‘Is it too much if they’re both in rompers?’ And when they tried them on, we were, like, ‘No, that’s perfect.’ It’s supposed to be a sexy thing, but they’re also traditionally childish. So it rides that line.”

Elliott points out that there does appear to be a current trend in rompers in Brooklyn. “There are so many women who dress younger, like baby doll dresses – we dress like little kids. It’s a way of both holding onto childhood a little bit and trying to look cool.” Adds McNulty, “There’s something that’s a little bit infantile about a romper – maybe inappropriately so,” she laughs.

With the brief three week shooting schedule, rehearsals for the actors were a luxury. “Clare and I had a dinner meeting a week before we started and went through the bulkier scenes and talked about them together,” Elliott recalls. “After that, it was a lot of running lines in the morning in the van on the way to

filmswelike Page 6 of 15 set.” The two women had a natural chemistry, both on and off camera. “We spent so much time together, particularly riding bikes during scenes, and we would just talk. And we’d hang out at the end of the day. We totally bonded.”

Having a pair of first-time feature directors should have been a nightmare – but was anything but. “I’ve never seen two people collaborate like that before,” McNulty says. “S-V would sometimes guide me with one vantage point on a scene, which was really helpful to me, and then Charles had an addition that just kicked it over the edge. They would totally complete the picture for us.”

It was a smooth process for the directors. “There was something nice about the symmetry of the film, having two directors and two leads,” Rogers says. “There was no real division of priorities between myself and S-V. There was just a real fluid nature about the entire process. We both knew what we liked and we both knew what we wanted. It was nice to be able to put all of that together.”

ROAD TRIP – And The Characters of Brooklyn

The idea of a road trip is the perfect venue for showing where the cracks in the two women’s quirky personalities lie, all in ways that make the audience bust out laughing. “The real life scenarios these girls encounter just totally display their incompetence,” Elliott explains. “They have to make this journey themselves and figure it out themselves, and their sense of practicality and their immaturity comes out. They’ve never had to survive or deal with anything until this trip. And they only have each other to bounce things off.”

Besides its two leads, FORT TILDEN is loaded with the kinds of characters whom those who live in Brooklyn have come to know and love – okay, well, at least know well – something which came out of sending the two young women out on the road.

“Something nice about a road trip is that you can meet an infinite number of characters,” Rogers explains. “When we were writing, if we hit upon a moment where we said, ‘This needs something more,’ there was always the ability to write in a new character that you would find in that particular part of New York. So there was always an opportunity for more jokes along the way.”

The people – and locations – the pair encounter were certainly familiar ones to the actresses. “Every scene in the movie reminds me of a different part of my life,” McNulty says. “When I’m watching the film, I’m immediately transported back to when I first moved to Brooklyn. Every shot is just so rich with experiences.”

FORT TILDEN wastes no time introducing the audience to its cavalcade of quirky Brooklynites. The film opens with Allie and Harper forced to listen to a set of twins, Naomi and Leia (played by an actual set of

filmswelike Page 7 of 15 twins, PHOEBE and CLAIRE TYERS), who are debuting their god-awful newest song creation on the roof of their apartment building for a collection of friends.

The twins came to the film via Charles Rogers. “When we were writing, we thought it made a lot of sense for Allie and Harper to come upon these identical twins, to whom they could compare themselves, as codependent friends,” he explains. Rogers himself regularly performs improv and comedy, and had performed often with Phoebe Tyers. “I said, ‘I know identical twins. And they’re both good actors and funny.”

He and Bliss visited the Tyers sisters on their birthday, and the women played them 30 songs, including one, “When the Angels Fall,” written when they were still in high school, the song our dynamic duo must bear through and pretend to like. “It was a very sincere song, which was the most important thing,” Rogers says. “As long as it was very sincere, it would make the girls have to deal with something uncomfortable. They’re not very comfortable with sincerity – they find it offensive.”

Unable to voice their displeasure audibly, Allie and Harper take to texting hysterically mean comments to each other. “They kind of bond over their hatred of seeing other people expressing themselves, because it’s something they’re unable to do,” Elliott explains. It’s okay, though – the audience bonds with the two of them, as well, because they’re thinking the same things. “There’s something comically unfair about the movie opening on other characters that they would resent, which was a fun position to put them in,” Rogers adds. “They have a hard time with other people being praised. A lot of their life is spent dealing with other people getting attention, whether they deserve it or not.”

Interestingly, Bliss and Rogers had originally considered putting Allie and Harper in a bathroom at the party to trade barbs about the girls’ crappy song. “We wanted them talking shit about people who are trying to be creative,” Bliss explains. “When we thought of texting instead, we realized, ‘Hey, with texting, you can literally talk shit about something that’s happening right in front of you and never incriminate yourself!’”

The directors actually further use texting as a signature aesthetic in the film, using the time stamp on texts to pace the women’s day for the audience. “Texting, especially for 25-year-old women, is primary, so I knew I couldn’t make a movie without these girls texting. It would be unrealistic for it not to be a part of the film,” Bliss explains. “So it served as a really nice way to clock the film as we go. You start to see that they’ve wasted their day just trying to get to Fort Tilden.”

The ballyhoo over Naomi and Leia’s performance is cut short by an obnoxiously angry neighbor who comes up to the roof to complain about the noise (which will interfere with her upcoming busy day – getting Lasik surgery and auditioning as a crowd-warmer for “The View”). “Who gets Lasik on the same day you have an audition?” Bliss laughs.

filmswelike Page 8 of 15 The neighbor (played by another comic acquaintance of Rogers’, ANN CARR) fit right into the aesthetic of odd kooks. “We really wanted this to be a very New York movie, and that angry neighbor is a very New York character,” Bliss explains. “The whole idea of having a live performance on your rooftop in Williamsburg is also a very New York thing.”

The scene also marks the debut of one of the film’s signature gags, when one of the twins, in the middle of the neighbor’s rant, spurts out the oddly complimentary, “I love your nightgown!” a tact Allie employs with great regularity, due to her constant dependence on others’ opinions (especially Harper’s), for everything from somebody’s socks to their “beautiful name.”

“It’s a means of disarming someone,” McNulty explains. Adds Bliss, “She thinks if she gives someone a compliment, they’re going to reciprocate in some way. Plus, it’s a way for her to incorporate herself into their world, even though she was just making fun of them moments before.”

Again, a relatable behavior for the actresses, Elliott notes. “I am so guilty of that, while waiting for an audition,” she admits. “I’ll go, ‘Oh, my God, your sweater! I love your sweater!’ We’re in this together – I don’t want any competition. Let’s just all compliment each other on random items and get it over with.”

Equally banal is the female banter between Harper and a beautiful potential replacement roommate (for when Allie leaves for the Peace Corps) named Lucy (ELIA MONTE-BROWN). “Charles and I have good ears for meaningless, but polite, talk, which is used to try to connect on some level, but which is actually totally vacant,” Bliss says. “It sounds like it means something, but it’s really kind of empty.”

Allie is equally guilty of such nonsense, complaining that she “didn’t believe her personality choice,” after the woman has left. “Everyone’s chosen a personality,” Rogers explains. “By the time you’re 20- something, if you haven’t chosen your personality, then you’ve gotta move out of the city.”

“The girls are both kind of competitive with each other,” he adds. “They’re both really into appearing cool, and if they sense that the other person might be cool, they’re going to take it to that competitive place of proving it to the other. Allie’s threatened by the entire visit. She doesn’t think she could ever be as cool and hip and charming as Lucy is.”

“Allie sees her as being possibly more compatible with Harper than she is,” McNulty relates. “Allie ascribes a lot of her self-worth to what Harper thinks of her. In that moment, she thinks it’s means she’s irrelevant.”

Once the girls decide upon the day’s activity – the bike trip – the next step is. . . finding an extra bike for Harper to use. Allie dispatches herself to a downstairs neighbor named Ebb, played by NEIL CASEY, a comic and former SNL staff writer, who has the unique ability to make the girls – and the audience – squirm. “We knew that Ebb just needed to be the saddest sack in the world,” Rogers explains. “It’s hard to find somebody who could portray that believably. Because he’s not manipulative. He doesn’t use his

filmswelike Page 9 of 15 sadness to manipulate Allie. He’s just genuinely pathetic. And we knew that Neil would be able to do that hilariously and in a cringey way.”

Upon delivery, though, Harper finds the idea of sitting on the same piece of leather where Ebb’s crotch has been utterly detestable, resulting in the unleashing of an outrageously funny tirade about protecting her vagina from God-knows-what. “I thought the whole paragraph was hilarious,” laughs Elliott. “And there does seem to be an underlying ‘cum’ theme in this movie.”

“Yes, there’s a lot of cum talk,” Rogers laughs. “That was very important to us.” In this case, any thought of combining Ebb and sex seems to just generate disgusting thoughts. “Certain people just give you the heebie-jeebies, and you think, ‘Oh, God, could you imagine? This person actually has sex sometimes!’”

Allie then relieves Harper of the displeasure of sitting on Ebb’s bike by swapping her own bicycle for his, though she quickly finds that his tires, like his ego, are in need of inflation. Never having touched a bicycle pump, she finds an ample tutorial online, featuring a young boy explaining the ropes of tire pumping.

“I don’t know how to do very basic things myself,” Bliss admits. “And these days, you go and look it up online, and there’s some 11-year-old teaching you how to do something that, as an adult, you should probably know how to do.”

“It’s funny,” says McNulty, “but I really didn’t know how to pump up a bike. That was my introduction to pumping air into bicycle tires.” That’s okay, Rogers adds, “I don’t know how to ride a bike.”

Harper, meanwhile, is getting ready by doing what all women need to do to prep for a trip, particularly while speaking to their father on the phone: shaving her crotch. “She doesn’t take a shower; she shaves her vagina,” says Rogers. “That’s how she gets ready.” Adds Elliott, “I’m not saying I’ve done that, but people do a lot of gross shit when they’re talking to people on the phone, even if they’re having a heart to heart about something. You can never tell what the other person is doing.”

Once they finally make it out the door, their trip immediately comes to a halt as the girls come upon a painter on his lunch break, eating a sandwich next to a barrel – which they immediately assume he is selling, and MUST have. “For the Antiques Roadshow generation, they’re thinking it’s probably worth a million dollars,” McNulty explains. “It’s a find. The hipster Brooklyn culture is about finding something unique that nobody else has. And certainly nobody else is going to have a barrel that is sold to you by an authentic painter,” even if he has only been spending the morning painting someone’s bathroom.

“There’s a lexicon to luxurious distressed items that are unnecessary in the home,” Rogers says. “That suddenly a barrel that just looks shitty on the corner of the street might actually just be a barrel from ABC that usually goes for $500.” Adds Bliss, “There’s a New York cred that if you found it on the street, it must have a history.”

filmswelike Page 10 of 15 The painter immediately locks onto their ignorance about the whole matter, allowing them to “talk him down” (he never actually says anything) from $500 to $200. “They have a weird elevated sense of what everything costs, even though they’re not actually living at that level,” McNulty says. “They’re not living at a level where they can just spend $500 on a barrel, but that’s the world they exist in. They’re really confident in the way that they are wrong.”

The man gladly accepts a check from Harper for the barrel-that’s-not-his, a payment method Harper employs throughout the film, trusting that, at some point, her father will provide money to cover them. “She never carries cash, and just wants the world to accept that,” Elliott explains.

“She doesn’t think to ask her dad for money until it’s too late, so she has to use checks,” Rogers explains. “They start the movie saying, ‘This is gonna be the cheapest day ever,’ and then, by the end of the day, they’ve spent money on things they don’t need,” mostly with Harper blindly writing checks to people. “She just leaves a trail of checks along their journey.”

While still in their own neck of the woods in wonderful Williamsburg, Allie and Harper happen upon a commonly-seen figure, comedian/musician REGGIE WATTS. “That’s a bit of an inside joke to Williamsburg,” Bliss reveals. “Reggie Watts is just all over – everyone who’s around there has seen him.” The two directors, in fact, were eating at a restaurant while writing the film, and there indeed was Reggie Watts at a nearby table, Rogers recalls. “We said, ‘God, we just see him everywhere. The girls should see him and say, ‘We see him everywhere.’ So we wrote him in, and he was gracious enough to do it.”

The girls, pedaling through Carroll Gardens and chattering away, fail to notice a mom with a baby carriage, a sight common in that district, and Allie’s front tire lightly taps the corner of the carriage, resulting in an avalanche of nasty admonishments from the mom plus passersby (“witnesses”). “That is something that happens in New York, people making a bigger deal out of something than is appropriate,” Rogers explains. “You often find yourself in the middle of a lot of screaming and commotion, and somebody taking pictures as ‘evidence.’ Particularly with the strollers – that’s like an ‘entitled stroller’ area, in Carroll Gardens.”

“That happens so often in New York,” Elliott relates. “Even if it’s as small as you pulling out your chair and accidentally bumping someone else’s in a restaurant. You get a nasty look. But particularly the baby carriages – that’s one of the fun things about this movie, because it pokes fun at all these hipster tropes, but without bashing it.”

Hoping to help spark a romantic vibe once reaching the two fellows at the beach, Harper decides to hit up an occasional flame, Benji (PETER VACK), for some drugs. “They’ve been on and off for a very long time,” Rogers explains. “He’s the only person who has any control over her. She seems to be able to control everyone else that she runs into, or knows how to play it cool. But Benji ultimately keeps her in his tight psychological grip.”

filmswelike Page 11 of 15 Elliott’s assessment: “Benji’s an asshole who totally just uses her, as I’m sure he does other women. He abuses her, and they have sex, and that’s basically their relationship. And it’s the most Harper has right now.”

When they meet up with him in a park, Benji is surrounded by his “posse of bitches,” a phalanx of gay men. Says Rogers, “There’s just something about him that everyone falls in love with. And he keeps a posse of gay guys around that are in love with him, but he would never actually let sleep with him.”

The men – led by the sharply hilarious MAX JENKINS as Ashley – apparently don’t think much of Harper, and trade a series of well-crafted barbs, in a scene loaded with both witty lines and great improv (e.g. “It’s funny that you’re here – I had a dream that you died.” “Oh, my God, I didn’t.” “How’s your family?”).

“I was really scared, because those men were really, really funny,” McNulty recalls. “The scene was written, but then we would improvise within that. They were great.”

The girls can’t resist popping into a crappy discount clothing store they come upon, leaving their bikes vulnerable on the sidewalk as they pick out a wide variety of couple-o’-bucks-off-the-rack tops. The two pop in and out of frame, offering an exchange few members of the opposite sex would have any idea about. “It’s a natural environment, in a clothing store with cheap cool clothes,” Elliott says. “As a girl, you kind of lose your mind a little bit and imagine what it would be like to suddenly be a cool person.” Adds McNulty, “We totally tapped into that when we were thinking about what to wear to SxSW,” where the film premiered. “’Does this say, like, casual and fun, but also, like, smart?’” she laughs.

After picking out a few goodies (to be paid for by check, of course), the girls wait in line, and, while looking out the front door, watch, as a young man steals Allie’s bike – and do nothing but ask each other what he’s doing, as a fellow shopper observes them incredulously. “We loved having them in a situation where they could have total control, but they do nothing,” Bliss states. “They could just put the clothes down and stop him. But Allie is afraid of confrontation. They just avoid their own reality.”

“It’s this little boy, too – the most unintimidating person, who they could easily stop,” Elliott notes. “They just make things harder for themselves.” Adds McNulty, “Neither of us gets that we have a responsibility in this situation, that nobody’s going to take care of it for us. It’s one of many occasions where we know that we have to take responsibility for things, and we’re just not equipped.”

Without a ride, the girls are forced to do something they’re not very good at – ask for help. They visit an old acquaintance of Allie’s named Marin, who lives with her roommate, Amanda, and who has a car which they attempt to borrow, in a scene filmed actually in Bliss’s own apartment.

Marin is played to controlling, judgmental perfection by comic actress DESIRÉE NASH. “A large amount of our casting came from comedy theater, like The Upright Citizens Brigade, the Magnet Theater and the PIT (People Improv Theater),” Rogers informs. “Desirée does a lot of comedy at all three of those

filmswelike Page 12 of 15 theaters. She’s very funny.”

Of Marin and Amanda, Bliss points out, “They’re the kinds of people Allie once had as friends, but is no longer friends with, but still has a part of them in herself.” The two volunteer in the Teach for America program and eagerly support Allie’s proposed connection to the Peace Corps. “A lot of young people get out of college and do Teach for America, a program they’re often not really ready for. It’s a lot like what Allie’s doing – she’s trying to do something she has been told is a reputable thing, but is not actually suited for.”

Harper is the complete opposite of the judgmental, controlling Marin, making for another of the film’s memorably comical interactions. “We prick each other throughout that whole scene,” Elliott explains. “I’m touching her stuff, and she’s tell me to sit straight. Harper walks into a situation like that and just wants to wreck everything as much as she can, making it her own.”

Adds Rogers, “There’s nothing cool or interesting about these girls, in any way. They’re the kinds of girls that Harper would hate, just because they’re very boring.” To Harper, they’re like chapters in a book it’s okay to skip. “But at the same time, Marin is sort of Harper’s match, because she’s just as judgmental. They both butt heads.”

Unable to use Marin’s car, Allie and Harper call a car service – though whom they call may not be exactly who has shown up to drive them to Fort Tilden. A man named Samrat (DEBARGO SANYAL) picks them up in his “ride,” charging an exorbitant amount of money for the privilege.

“That’s another New York situation, where if you don’t find a Yellow Cab, a guerrilla-style cab driver will come up to you and take advantage of you,” Bliss explains. “Normally a New Yorker would say no, but, in this case, they’re so fed up, they’ll do anything.”

The ride goes just fine, until, while making chat with Samrat, Harper reveals the name of the company for which her father works – one apparently known for predatorial practices towards the people of Samrat’s country, prompting him to angrily spit them out of his car in some unknown location under a bridge, though not before giving Harper an earful.

“One of my favorite things about that scene is that, when they get into the cab, Harper tells Samrat, ‘You know, you’re an asshole for taking advantage of us like this,’” Bliss says. “Then, at the end of the scene, it’s revealed that it is her family which has really been taking advantage of people.”

Sanyal’s performance is both funny and on target. “We love Debargo Sanyal, and were very lucky to have him,” Rogers says. “He was just really able to hit the right comedic notes, but he’s also a very emotional actor. He was really able to convince the audience that whatever Harper’s dad does, even if you don’t know what that is, it’s something that would cause this man great emotional strife, and it’s

filmswelike Page 13 of 15 probably bad.” Adds Elliott, “It causes Harper to begin to realize what kind of man her dad really is. That scene was pretty intense.”

While Sanyal is a fine actor, he apparently, like many New Yorkers, is not much of a driver, McNulty shares. “He had never driven before. That was done in a parking lot so he wouldn’t hit anybody. But he was great – we spent a lot of time in that car, just singing ‘90s tunes with him all day.”

The girls walk the remainder of the way to Fort Tilden, avoiding a creepy guy hobbling along in a cast, who appears to be following them. Once there, they become yet more frustrated, meandering their way around the park trying to find the beach (and the boys) – mostly because Harper can’t admit she has no idea where she’s going – and the two finally have it out. “They haven’t eaten all day, and by the time they arrive at the beach, they’ve upset each other enough that they’re at their wit’s end,” Rogers says. “The day brings out the things in their relationship that they’ve wanted to touch on. There’s that thing about your closest friends, where you need them, because they know the things about you that you don’t like about yourself, but you also resent them for knowing that, too. And sometimes, when you’re incommunicative, those things will come out in heated moments.”

They finally stumble upon a couple whom they ask for directions to the beach, though they don’t appear to be of much assistance. “That’s us,” Rogers laughs of his and Bliss’s cameo in the film. “We couldn’t not act in it, to be honest. And we thought it would be fun if we were not helpful to their getting to the beach, and that they would hate us.”

Towards the end of the day, Allie and Harper finally find Russ and Sam at an adjacent beach – along with two topless girls, Sage (CHRISTINE SPRANG) and Mia (HALLIE HAAS). “We needed them to have yet another complication,” Rogers explains.

“It’s a little heartbreaking, but it’s also fun to see how they react to it,” McNulty says. “Allie is such a people pleaser, so she’s trying to turn it into, ‘Oh, yay! Great! I’m so glad that these naked girls are here.’” Harper, on the other hand, takes a cue from Sage and Mia, Elliot notes. “I immediately try to rise to the challenge and get topless, too. My instinct is to just do what they’re doing.”

Everyone seemed to be just fine shooting the scene – especially one onlooker who couldn’t seem to get enough of the goings-on, Rogers recalls. “There was one creepy guy who was sitting in his beach chair facing the girls. And at one point, Bridey said, ‘He hasn’t stopped staring at us. Can you tell him to turn around?’ So I had to go tell him, ‘Sir, could you just turn around and face the other way.’ Fortunately, he just said, ‘Yeah, okay.’”

Regardless of the presence of the other girls – or perhaps because of them – Harper makes a bid to complete her mission by dragging Russ out into the ocean and attempting, unsuccessfully, to seduce the poor lad. “That water was cold,” Elliott recalls. “There was no way anything could happen in that ocean,

filmswelike Page 14 of 15 with this entirely uncomfortable person.”

She nonetheless continues, disregarding all the signs that nothing is happening except her creating a miserable experience. “She wants to believe she had this chemistry with this guy. She likes to think she’s so good at reading people, and instead she’s dealing with this rejection. She realizes this whole trip was for nothing, and that she’s kind of grossed out at herself.”

The two realize that the lads are just that – lads, still in high school, and that they themselves are “old.” “Allie feels bad for Harper, even though she still can’t admit she’s wrong,” McNulty says. “There’s no glee in it, no pride in being right.”

They take another guerrilla cab ride home and then reevaluate their day, though not before Allie informs poor Ebb that he’s not getting his bike back. “It’s a heartbreaking scene, because he really is a victim of her thoughtless, selfish behavior,” McNulty informs. “This agenda doesn’t serve anyone but Allie. But in the end, she takes responsibility for it in this way that is unusual for her. Her desperate concern for what other people think of her has started to fall away.”

Harper calls her father, in a last ditch attempt to connect with him, but finally realizes the reality about their relationship. “She asks him, ‘How do you get your life in motion?’” Elliot says. “And he answers her with just a blanket statement, ‘You’re a dreamer,’ and there’s so much in that, I think. She wants something more and she wants to do great things. And I think for the first time she’s realizing how much she’s been sabotaging herself. She’s realizing she can’t control everything, and that she’s not right about everything. She’s realizing the repercussions of her actions for the first time.”

Allie, too, begins to get her own reality, McNulty says. “She’s having the hard realization that you can’t fake passion, you can’t fake what you want. You can’t just participate in things without having a reason to do them. She’s coming to terms with the fact that she’s totally directionless. And that’s actually a good thing to acknowledge sometimes in your life, because that gives you a place to start.”

The two girls are greeted by yet another song from the twins, Naomi and Leia, this time accepting the tune as a gift. “It sort of starts where it began, listening to these girls sing,” Elliott says. “And this time we’re willing to admit it’s not bad. I think it says a lot about this journey, just being honest with themselves. The film really shines a mirror to these two women, which is why it really hits home for a lot of people, because their flaws are out on the table, where we can all see them.”

So what lies ahead for Allie and Harper? “I think this is their first emotional struggle, where they’re discovering something about themselves,” says Elliott. “And I think, in the future, they’re going to have to struggle even more. I see them eventually getting to a place of confidence and self-assurance and happiness – but I think it’s a long road. In the meantime, I think there’s more misadventures ahead for them.”

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