Director Kyle Roberts Talks ‘God’s Plan’ for New Movie, WHAT RHYMES WITH REASON
By Cooper Dowd, Movieguide Staff
Director Kyle Roberts recently sat down with Movieguide to discuss his upcoming movie, WHAT RHYMES WITH REASON, set to release on Oct. 10, World Mental Health Day.
Over seven year in the making, WHAT RHYMES WITH REASON seeks to balance real-life, relevant topics such as suicide, anxiety, and loss, without glorifying the sin. This became the central challenge for Roberts and the creative team as they embarked on making this movie.
“Throughout all of our studies, there really wasn’t a film that we could pinpoint that that’s exactly what we’re trying to do, which is make something that is real, and that is honest. But on the other hand, it is family friendly, and not cheesy. Which is super hard,” Roberts explained. “There’s probably a reason why it hasn’t been done yet. [But] that was our goal, and we didn’t take that for granted or lightly at all.”
“It took us seven years to get this film together,” he continued. “We had five years of research in crafting the story, interviewing a lot of parents and counselors, youth workers, to try to get this right. And the number one feedback we got throughout all that was please do not show an attempt at suicide. What that does is create this ideation in everyone’s mind, but especially youth as they’re just trying to figure out their identity and purpose. So that’s something we took to heart as you see in the film.”
While WHAT RHYMES WITH REASON addresses topics of suicide, Roberts said that it was the team’s goal to create a movie that the whole family could watch together; akin to classic adventure stories from the 80s..
“Essentially, it’s about six teenagers in high school. And there’s an absolute tragedy that happens in their life,” Roberts said of the movie’s storyline. “And that ignites them to go on this epic trek into the wilderness to find this legendary landmark. Through that journey, they end up breaking down walls and barriers and bringing up a lot of different mental health issues that they’re each dealing with individually. So we cover anxiety, panic attacks, depression, thoughts of suicide, all kinds of stuff.”
Robert’s said that his many years as a Young Life youth leader and as a father motivated him to create a movie that would offer viewers hope and help.
“ I was the Young LIfe leader for eight years and that’s actually where I met my wife,” he explained. “Their approach to ministry was just to earn the right to be heard from high school kid, and that’s how we approach this film. Throughout those eight years, we just saw this massive rise, in the kids that we love and serve, of depression and anxiety.”
Roberts said that while shows like 13 REASONS WHY made an effort to address teenage anxiety and the mental health crisis, it ultimately ended up doing more harm than good.
“It had no hope,” Roberts said of the show. “It had no redemption and was kind of a revenge stor. There’s their statistics that suicide rates went up that year specifically. I guarantee you that was not the intention.But that’s what that’s what ended up happening.”
“There’s a lot of films or shows now that cover these topics that are too dark or create these ideations and can tend to glorify suicide,” he continued. “That’s, of course, not what we want. We just knew there had to be a better way to approach this topic.”
After over 30 revisions to the script, Roberts said that they finally reached a balance of being true to the story’s subject matter, but also creating a fun adventure movie that families can watch together.
Roberts said that he hopes the movie will offer hope to youth who are struggling with similar issues, and that it acts as a bridge between parents and children to start to talk about mental health in a digital age.
“I hope that when youth see this, they see it and they see other youth hurting on screen and they know that they are seen and heard and not alone,” he said. But also we did very carefully craft this film so that [parents and kids] can watch together. Hopefully they’re with their parents and they talk about these topics together.”
“Personally, I’ve learned throughout this whole journey that this is not Kyle Roberts’ plan for this movie. This is God’s plan, and I’ve been very aware of that,” he said.
Roberts also said that he hopes the movie is a call to action, to encourage young people to seek out help. The team for WHAT RHYMES WITH REASON partnered with 988, a suicide and crisis lifeline, to offer people real-world help.
Movieguide has yet to review WHAT RHYMES WITH REASON, but check back soon for a complete review.
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