Tribeca 2014: Ashley Hinshaw "On A Chair, Naked"

Tribeca 2014: Writer/Director Angus MacLachlan’s Goodbye to All That

By Bryan Abrams

Writer-director Angus MacLachlan’s Goodbye to All That includes one of the more frank and pathos-free sex scenes in recent memory. Otto Wall (Paul Schneider) and Mildred (Ashley Hinshaw), who recently met on the online dating service OkCupid, sit opposite one another on chairs, naked. They are describing, with exacting detail, what they’d like to do to each other. Otto’s wife has recently left him, and he’s experimenting for the first time in his life with online dating. The scene is remarkably compassionate—neither Otto or Mildred are mocked or shamed for their desires, and, as the scene progresses, each grow more bold. They never touch each other. When the moment is over, they thank one another for a great experience—audience members could share a similar reaction with MacLachlan for creating a sex scene in which no one’s a prude, a slut, a creep or a cad. It’s just sex (in this case, it’s just sex talk), after all, and this movie’s got more on its mind that shaming its character’s very human desires.

Eventually Otto (Paul Schneider) and Mildred (Ashley Hinshaw) make their relationship physical.

It should come as no surprise that MacLachlan could write this moment; his previous efforts, including his screenplay for 2005’s excellent Junebug, reflect someone who likes to write scenes that many others would play for broad comedy or queasy humor, but which he turns into quieter moments imbued with real feeling. This is MacLachlan’s directorial debut, and the seasoned writer shows a steady hand and a way with actors that elevate even the small parts in this little gem.

Otto wife Annie (Melanie Lynskey) has left him because of an alarming lack of focus. This is at first shown in a bit of physical comedy—the very first we see of Otto is him completing a race and immediately tripping. We witness him stubbing his toe and smashing his shin into just about every available edge or table leg, and the final, truly dangerous example of his attention deficit is an ATV accident (with his daughter and a friend along for the ride) that brings about real damage to his foot.

Writer/director Angus MacLachlan, Paul Schneider, and Audrey Scott.

But Annie’s issues with Otto’s lack of attention go much deeper than his inability to negotiate his own child’s bedroom without incident, and this is the story that MacLachlan’s telling. Otto needs to interrogate his own lax style and find out what he’s been missing all this time. His love for his daughter Edie (Audrey Scott), the central relationship in the film, is the only thing that seems to keep him focused, yet even the projects he begins for her (creating a stone wall around a garden, for example), he can never seem to finish.

Like Junebug, Goodbye to All That is set in North Carolina. MacLachlan said in the press notes that he wanted to show “how people live in the south, in a mid-sized town…that we aren’t all working class, unsophisticated or cut off.”

Many of his actors here are southern: including his lead Paul Schneider, the always hilarious Amy Sedaris as his troubled boss, and Anna Camp (recognizable from her rococo turn as Sarah Newlin in HBO’s True Blood), who portrays the religious, sexually adventurous (and extremely conflicted) Debbie Spangler, another of Otto’s internet dates. “I wanted people to see that this story could be in Ann Arbor, Portland, Austin, or Omaha,” MacLachlan has said, “any city that wasn’t New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.” Goodbye to All That is set in Winston Salem, and there are many shots captured by cinematographer Corey Walter that are very beautiful. They shot the film in the fall, “a particularly beautiful one,” MacLachlan says, and the collaboration between this first time director, his DP (working on his first feature), and his first AD Scott Larkin created a perfect environment for the creation of a film that meant something to everyone involved. “[Corey] listened and understood when I told him that the humanity and compassion in the story was fundamental,” MacLachlan says.

MacLachlan’s desire for compassion is evident throughout—online dating, single parenting, even a summer camp reunion are given humorous but loving treatment. And the director’s way with actors is evident from the easy, natural performances—something he gleaned from working in the theater. “I believe that being educated and working as an actor for a number of years allows me to know it’s like,” he said in the press notes. “The one thing I truly felt confident of before going into this project was talking to actors.”

There is an undercurrent of compassion running through the film that makes the sadder, darker moments all the more heart rending. Otto is desperate to stay close to his daughter, but she no longer feels safe, or all that comfortable, in his new house. The fact that she overhears him with a woman one evening only strengthens her conviction to stay away. One of the touching, and heartbreaking, components of this father/daughter relationship is that this little girl worries about him. The question MacLachlan asks about their relationship is never whether or not Edie will question her father’s love. It’s clear she knows how much he adores her, so the question, a trickier one, is will he be able to learn from his breakup, identify what actually happened, and use it to foster a better relationship with his daughter. In short, will he ever learn to focus?

Short of Schneider, the film is dominated by a fantastic female cast. MacLachlan has credited his casting director Mark Bennett, who found the aforementioned Audrey Scott, Ashley Hinshaw, Anna Camp, Melanie Lynskey, and Amy Sedaris. You’ve also got brief but  memorable turns from Heather Graham and Heather Lawless who help to round out a formidable female cast. When talking about casting his leading man, MacLachlan said that he wanted an actor who truly liked women. Perhaps this is why the sex scenes seem so refreshing; the dynamic is two people enjoying one another, not two people engaged in a conquest or a game. Even the one truly batty character, the religious, confused Debbie Spangler, is given more dimensions by the end of the film than you’d find in many, many other movies.

Goodbye to All That is charming without being cloying, sexy without being sexist, and funny without being cynical or mocking. Not bad for a first time director, but not surprising consider that director’s MacLachlan.

Goodbye to All That: FilmStage Review

Written and directed by Angus MacLachlan (best known as the writer of another observant indie gem, Junebug) sets his story in suburban Winston Salem, NC; this is a place that feels like a small-enough town, perhaps inspiring Otto’s turn to online dating following the reappearance of an old fling, Stephanie (Heather Graham).
Recently divorced, Stephanie courts Otto and they get together for a fancy dinner and a one-night stand that lasts until she has to speed off to work. Otto is further infuriated to learn Annie has been unfaithful in their marriage and so he takes to OkCupid for a series of trysts that seem all too indulgent; each woman is more beautiful than the next. 

Goodbye to All That is a richly observed human comedy with scenes that border upon perfection, but one wishes sex was treated with the same level of observation. To achieve a realistic level of a sexual experience with all the humor and awkwardness that matches that of the emotional reality elsewhere in the film, you may need to make an NC-17-rated film. Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac it is not, but other comedies have explored sexual awkwardness in very funny ways that ring true (Michael Lehmann’s 40 Days and 40 Nights is the first that comes to mind).

Otto’s relationships include Mildred (Ashley Hinshaw) a 20-something that is looking for a no-strings-attached kind of fling, one that first includes the simulation of virtual sex in Otto’s kitchen, followed by a potentially schizophrenic nurse’s aid Debbie Spangler (Anna Camp). Debbie is an odd bird, referring to herself in the third person and meeting Otto at church, after which she comes prepared for a date with a bag full of sex toys. Adding some third act tension for Otto, he meets a woman from his youth, also recently divorced and played in a beautifully restrained and powerful performance by stand-up comedian Heather Lawless.

The broader comic sex scenes did break the spell of the restrained portions, although Schneider’s Otto admits he is both aroused and overwhelmed by the attention after a long dormant period with wife Annie.

Paul Schneider on Awkward Sex Scenes, Taking Risks, and His Tribeca Movie Goodbye to All That

by Katey Rich

Paul Schneider never thought much about acting, and even now, with a Jane Campion movie, a sitcom, and a critic’s award under his belt, he’s not sure he can call himself one. As a film student at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, he started acting as a favor to friends and decades later has found himself with an idiosyncratic acting career, saying he turns down roles he knows would pay better in favor of smaller, more intimate films, like the current Tribeca Film Festival entry Goodbye to All That.

Playing Otto Wall, a North Carolina man who is left adrift when his wife (Melanie Lynskey) suddenly asks for a divorce, Schneider is a gentle but spacey spirit opposite a series of comic turns from actresses, including Heather Graham and Anna Camp. The film’s many sex scenes—Wall turns to OK Cupid post-breakup, naturally—are at turns hilarious and cringingly awkward, and Schneider credits director Angus MacLachlan for creating a comfortable set that made it possible. Speaking over the phone last week, while walking his dog and occasionally scolding him to stop sniffing dead things, Schneider talked about his strange road toward acting, the “spiritual coincidence” that led to his role in Campion’s Bright Star, and how he proves to his female co-stars that he’s not a “sketch-ball.” Goodbye to All That screens tonight, Wednesday, and Saturday at the Tribeca Film Festival. 

VF Hollywood: According to IMDB, your nickname is Otto—which is also the name of your character in this movie. Is that a deliberate inside joke?
Paul Schneider: That was the credit I gave myself on a film that I directed. [2008’s Pretty Bird]

Oh, so it’s not like an in-joke about your nickname?
There is an in-joke. Autopeotomy is the act of cutting off your own dick. That was an expression of the mood I was in, after I finished. I think that one took a year off my life.

So what made you connect with this Otto and take the part?
There was a logic to the character’s psychology. His problem is that he can’t see what’s really around him. And of course he’s a graphic artist. Some of the visual artists I know are really great people and can be frustrating, because their head is in the clouds. It’s hard to make plans with those people; it’s hard to get them to show up on time. I’m sure people would say that about me too. I started acting because my friends and I made a film, and we didn’t know any actors. I just thought I could get us out of there with a lot less fuss and a lot more quickly. I started acting because of practical reasons, and then I kept acting because after our first film, I had an agent and a lawyer and all of a sudden, I found myself ahead of the game in a discipline I didn’t know much about. Ever since then, I’ve been bristling up to stereotypes that people have about actors.

Do you think of yourself as an actor now?
When I was waiting tables I didn’t think of myself as a waiter—this is the moment in my life when I’m waiting tables. I worked at a kiddie amusement park, driving a train for kids. At that point in my life, I didn’t consider myself a train conductor. Acting is something that I do occasionally. I wrote and directed a movie, and I didn’t necessarily think of myself as a writer and a director. I have some kind of reticence in saying, “This is me, this is what I’m doing.” Maybe because I still don’t know what that thing is.

You have a variety of awkward or tough scenes in this movie, from very frank sex scenes to heavy-duty emotions to a very verbal sexual encounter. Was there one in particular that was the toughest?
They’re all tough I guess for different reasons. It’s not like I get out of the shower and see myself in the mirror and think, That guy has got to be in a sex scene. The main thing is just getting over the fact that you’re going to be lying next to people that are far more attractive than you. In some ways I’ve done that my whole life, so it’s not that big a deal. I don’t know how other guys do it, but I think it’s good to chat with your co-worker before you get going, and let them know, “I’m not sketchy, I’m a good guy, I’m not going to try to fuck you afterward.” Basically you’re not a sketch-ball.
You’re bonded in the way that you’re both on film alone, no one else on set is on film, it’s just you. All your shit is hanging out, good, bad, and ugly. And it’s impossible not to be intimate, when you’re being intimate. Of course in some ways it’s artificial, but unless you’re given really specific direction, you kiss the way you’re going to kiss. When I kiss someone, that’s how Paul kisses them. You can’t hide everything.
In this instance we had Angus, who having been an actor was really comfortable speaking with actors. You need someone to sit down on the bed with you and touch you on the shoulder, to not be afraid of the physicality. Often times you find male directors who, once things get a little bit emotional or intimate, they dive behind the video monitor and call “Cut” and “Action.” Essentially, part of the reason they became directors is they want to manipulate life, but they don’t really want to be a part of it. They cast a gorgeous woman who they secretly have feelings for, and from some remote location, they manipulate what they want her to do. That’s a terrible director and a terrible human being. But then there are the great directors out there, like Angus, who are evolved enough to sit down and touch you on the shoulder and say, “Guys, this is great.” It’s intimate and it’s naked and it’s uncomfortable for everybody, and I feel like if you’re ballsy enough to say the words out loud, it makes for a lot less question marks and sideways glances.

So in this movie, Otto takes the risk and changes a lot of things about his life. Do you feel like you’re doing that at the similar point in your life?
Maybe the risks I’ve taken are the ones where I’ve said no to movies I don’t really believe in that might be better paydays or better exposure. There are actors out there who feel like you’ve got to take every opportunity and never say no. I couldn’t disagree more when it comes to me. It’s hard to make movies, it’s hard to act, it’s never something I felt like I was born to do. Whether or not the movies I’ve been in are all incredible successes, or even successful in a small way, at least I know that the people who made the movie, their heart was in the right place. The rest is up to the universe.

I would think that taking the role in Bright Star, doing a Scottish accent and acting opposite all these powerhouses, would be a pretty huge risk.
The reason I went to film school, I saw [Jane Campion’s] movie The Piano in 1993, and before that I hadn’t thought about being involved in film in any way. Then 12 years later, apparently Jane saw me in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and she called me up to do the movie. I think, cosmically the risk would be not doing that. You’d have to be pretty ballsy to say, “Hey, world, you just offered me the weirdest spiritual coincidence, and I’m going to say no to you.”
Certainly you’re right about fear being involved in that. I didn’t want to be the American dummy. I didn’t want to be the weak link in this very strong chain. You have these well-lauded actors—Ben Whishaw changed the way people saw Hamlet, after his interpretation on stage. I’m this redneck from North Carolina, I didn’t study this shit, I don’t know what I’m doing. But Jane created an atmosphere, and my co-workers created an atmosphere. It wasn’t a test every day. It wasn’t, “Is Paul going to do it?” every day. It was, “We’re going to do it together,” every day. It was one of my favorite experiences ever. Then I came home and nobody saw the movie, and of course, you feel kind of bummed about that. Then I left the country for a while, and I came back and apparently I had won the National Society of Film Critics’ best-supporting-actor award. There was no ceremony, there was no award, nothing was sent to me, it was just told to me in an e-mail. There’s some, I don’t want to say justice, but the world came back with a little happy ending.

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