By Michaela Gordoni
REMINDERS OF HIM director Vanessa Caswill says music helped her to build the movie’s scenes in her head before bringing them to reality.
“Every time that there’s a song, definitely that’s happening for me,” she told Movieguide®.
“I had put Kasey Musgraves’ ‘Neon Moon’ on my playlist, and every time I listened to it, I felt like I could I felt I feel like — the lyrics are really appropriate for the movie — but I felt this sense of it coming at a time where both Kenna and Ledger had acknowledged to themselves that they liked the other one and they were attracted to them, but they hadn’t they hadn’t shown it to each other yet,” she explained. “And so I really wanted this montage…where they’re like both stealing glances at each other and there’s a lot of longing in it.”
That song helped her find her way to that scene — which wasn’t in the script.
“And even like this, the fact that it’s called ‘Neon Moon’ maybe led me down the road of having so much neon in the movie because it’s such a romantic song,” she added.
Based on Colleen Hoover’s book, the movie is about woman, Kenna, who goes to prison, and is desperate to meet her daughter after she gets released. In the process, she unexpectedly finds love after loss in her deceased boyfriend’s best friend, Ledger.
In the movie, Ledger builds Kenna a “Happy Playlist” of songs, and fans will soon get their own version created by the director and author.
“Colleen and I were asked to make our own happy playlist. So, we did that together and they’re not songs in the movie. They were just songs that make us both happy,” Caswill explained.
“And then we’ve obviously got the soundtrack coming out. And then we’re going to have an extended soundtrack with all the songs that I had on my playlist that didn’t make the final cut. So, there’s lots of music coming out,” she said.
The movie was completely produced by a female team, which influenced the end result.
“It’s a female story, and it’s a female protagonist, and it’s a film about motherhood. So having a team of female filmmakers meant that we were so emotionally invested in it and really cared about the material and cared about being told from the female gaze,” Caswill said.
Part of Movieguide®’s review of the movie reads, “REMINDERS OF HIM has a unique storyline, with some good performances, but it fails to execute the story well enough to hit its emotional beats. The movie spends more time with romance than actual character development,” and “The movie stresses hope and compassion.”
The movie came out on March 13 and is available in theaters.
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