CS Weekly Archive > From the Trenches > 1/08/10

Oh Baby, You're So Vicious:

BY ADAM STOVALL

The Vicious Kind, the second film from writer-director Lee Toland Krieger, tells the story of Caleb Sinclaire (Adam Scott), a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown. His girlfriend cheated on him, sending him into a downward spiral of hate and despair, and now he must drive his brother, Peter (Alex Frost), and his brother's new girlfriend, Emma (Brittany Snow), home for Thanksgiving. Home, where the father he hasn't spoken to in eight years resides. Oh, and Emma bears a striking resemblance to the girlfriend who broke Caleb's heart. So there's that.  On December 1, it was announced that The Vicious Kind was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards: Best Actor, for Adam Scott, and Best Screenplay, for Krieger. CS Weekly was able to sit down with Krieger to discuss his film, the awards circuit, and his potential need for therapy.
 
What was the seed of the idea for The Vicious Kind?
The opening monologue. The first movie I did, December Ends, I made for $70,000 or $80,000 in the spring of 2004. I had just turned 21 and I had no idea what I was doing, the experience totally kicked my ass. Plus, I had just had my heart broken really badly for the first time. You know how it is, the first time when you're totally vulnerable and there's no baggage or guard. I think sometimes baggage is good, as it keeps your guard up a little longer. But literally, we finished December Ends and the next day I got on a train to head back to New York, and while on the train I wrote the entire opening scene. At the time, it was really long, 10-12 pages. It's tough to recall exactly what set me off, but I think it was feeling exhausted from going through this experience of making a film and having that fresh wound.
 
Also because, like so many filmmakers our age, I had become completely obsessed with everything Paul Thomas Anderson has done. I was also really into Jonathan Glazer's work, especially Sexy Beast. I was just in love with the idea of writing a performance. It seems obvious, but I wanted to write a character that an actor would want to do. When I wrote December Ends I didn't really think about that. I had a story that I wanted to tell, and I wasn't worried about anything else. But now I wanted to write something that a really good actor would want to do, so I wrote this monologue and then put it aside for six to eight months. Then I came back to it and felt like there was a real voice there. So the script wasn't written with structure in mind, or set pieces or a cool hook, none of the Robert McKee stuff—no disrespect to any of that. I really just wrote this script wanting to explore the character.
 
So the character of Caleb was the seed. Does that mean that your means of developing the story was just to evolve the character and see what else you could throw at him?
That's exactly right. I really had drawn this character pretty thoroughly in my mind, so as I wrote I was just fleshing out. I wondered, what was the most vulnerable place you could put this guy in? For me, it was about being around family and around a girl who made him uneasy and brought out every awful color in this guy.
 
I was growing disenchanted with a lot of the indie movies and the Indiewood movement, and I wanted to get back to the kind of films that threw the rules out the window and have stories and characters that had some bizarre twists and turns. So, I guess the process of writing this was that I knew who Caleb was, and I knew it would ultimately be a father-son story where this guy would come home and figure out whether or not he would reconcile or not. Then it took on a life of its own. I know this is kind of cliché, but I think if you really know your characters well and you know beginning-middle-and-end, the characters will lead the way. For me this wasn't an instance of trying to get the characters from point A to point B and steer them in a direction. It was more that I knew these characters and I knew when they were heading in a good direction and when they were headed in the wrong direction.
 
What was the biggest surprise to you in writing this? A character or story beat that you didn't see coming?
I think there were a couple of moments in earlier drafts that didn't make it to the shooting draft. There was a scene where Caleb and the ex-girlfriend were together, a flashback of sorts. He sleeps with her, and then when they're finished he spits in her face and says, "I know what you've done." [Executive producer] Neil [LaBute] read that, and Neil is kind of the king of very perverse, transgressive characters and moments—especially when it comes to the sexes. He read that, and his note was, "I think you've gone a bit too far, and I think that it will be very difficult to reel the audience back in with this guy on his journey if you have a moment like that." And upon review I agreed with him, because if it's too dark for Neil then it's probably too dark for most people. Now, I've described that scene, and if you've seen the film I think you would say, "That's not totally out of character, I believe that guy would do that." But as far as working it into the conventions of the film and not turning off every possible audience member, that to me was a bit surprising. It wasn't just Caleb, but I took a bunch of the characters to pretty extreme places. But I tried to keep it all from getting cartoonish, for lack of a better word.

Sex means something so different to every character in this film, and when it shows up it almost seems like it's a character itself.
I think there are a lot of people out there who look at Neil's work as misogynistic and think he must hate women, but I think anyone who has taken a closer look at Neil's work has realized that what Neil does so effectively is hold up a mirror to men, and in particular to men behaving badly. I know Neil, and he absolutely doesn't hate women. He's a very funny, jovial person who is very good at holding up that mirror. With The Vicious Kind, I think some people will assume that I hate women and I'm a misogynist, but for me it's about holding up the mirror to men like Caleb. To be frank, there are parts of me that are like him. Especially in my adolescence, I feel like there were voices in my head that I may not have acted upon, but they were there. Caleb's one of those guys who lets it free.
 
As to your question, though. I think Caleb is a guy who uses sex with the prostitute as means of expressing anger and hurting someone who hurt him. Sex with the prostitute is an expression of anger; even sex with Emma is an expression of anger. Because you have Peter, who is having sex with his girlfriend, who he loves, and he feels like it's pure, so he's kind of at the opposite end of the spectrum. For me, it's about the fact that sex can be used to manipulate or used as all kinds of expression. Not just anger, but power, too. I think revenge, as petty as it often is—and this might say a lot about me and my need for therapy—but I think revenge can sometimes be the only thing more satisfying that sex. Maybe that's not true, but for the state of mind that Caleb is in, it feels better.
 
Also, I thought Emma was really great in this regard. She has her boyfriend, but there's also an energy with Caleb that troubles and frightens her.
The idea of Emma is someone at that age where they're still falling into and figuring out their identity. That's such a vulnerable place to be, and I think so many girls that age are so impressionable. For Emma, I think sex with Peter, while it's not great for her, is in line with that societal expectation that she have sex with someone she's in love with. Not having been in love, she wonders if this is love. And then there's the flip side of that, where if a guy is, for lack of a better description, an asshole and the Bad Boy, that's somewhat irresistible. For women at that age, if a guy comes onto them they'll just let it happen. I remember having a conversation with a girl who was sleeping with one of my buddies who she really didn't like and wasn't enjoying the sex. I was fascinated by this because I couldn't get a girl to look at me twice, much less sleep with me. So I asked what she liked about him, and what it came down to was that he was very steadfast about sleeping with her. And with where she was, not knowing where appropriate boundaries might be, she kinda just let it happen. Emma is conflicted enough and confused enough and is still kind of vague enough on who she is, that she'll just let things happen.
 
What is your process?
I'm not a fast writer. The saying in my office is "Five pages a day keeps the doctor away." Whether I'm writing on spec or for hire, I really try to write five pages every day. I think for me, like most writers, the writing is easier when I'm doing it all the time. Whenever I'm away from it for a while for one reason or other and I have to get started again, it always takes a while to get things going and grease the wheels and all that. Until recently, I was in a cycle where I would only do my serious writing from 10pm until about 3 or 4 in the morning. It was the only time of the day when my phone wasn't ringing and I wasn't getting emails, it was just total solitude. For better or worse, as I get older I find I can't write that way. I get tired earlier and I have a serious girlfriend now and those hours don't work for her. So now I come into the office and from 9-12 I do the admin work, and then I put the headphones on, which is absolutely essential, and write until dinnertime. If I don't hit the five-page quota, I'll definitely write in the evening. I try to make playlists that sound and feel like the movie, because that will slide me into the zone more than anything else. Isn't is really just about tone at the end of the day? You can be as technically proficient as anybody, but look at Lost In Translation or Rushmore. Those are two of my favorite films, and they're both all about tone.
 
What is your barometer for when a scene is working?
A friend of mine, Bill, who is a pretty successful writer, told me something that really made a lot of sense: "When it's easy, it's right." Like when you're fighting it or trying to shoehorn in some dialogue or a plot point, that tends to be because it's not right for the scene. And you know, even though you might tell yourself that you really need this beat to get from A to B, but you know when it feels false. Also, when things get really long-winded or you have to do a lot of heavy lifting. For me, once the heavy lifting starts I know I need to go back and fix something.
 
I think it was Billy Wilder who said, "A problem with your third act is a problem with your first act."
Yeah, that's a far more concise way of saying that.
 
That's why he's Billy Wilder.
So true.

Adam spends his time watching the movies that are in theaters, and writing the ones he wishes were.



The Vicious Kind courtesy 72nd Street Productions

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