The Uninvited

Interview with Writer/Director Nadia Conners

The Uninvited opens in NY on April 11, LA & Miami on April 18.

Describe the film for us in your own words.

THE UNINVITED is a comedic drama taking place over the course of one night in the Hollywood Hills, as Rose and Sammy's party is interrupted by an unexpected stranger, Helen. This encounter, along with the presence of other complicated characters from her past and present, forces Rose to confront her insecurities and the loneliness of a deteriorating marriage. The film humorously critiques Hollywood's beauty standards while celebrating the complexities of womanhood and explores the themes of motherhood, and self-discovery.

It is fundamentally a sorry about one woman’s mid-life identity crisis colliding with a lost woman’s late-life existential crisis.

What drew you to this story?

I originally developed The Uninvited as a play to express and explore what felt like unmentionable ideas that haunted me as a woman who came to motherhood at midlife. I found the shift lonely and disorienting. I quit going to work as a writer but never stopped writing, alone and for an imagined audience. As I sank deeper into a solitary world with my son, I found a love for him that was eclipsing in its brilliance but a frustration with myself that was annihilating in its ever presence. I silently raged against the one-sided messaging of 3rd wave feminism which failed to prepare me for this not unwelcome transformation. And when I found myself becoming something I never imagined, a stay-at-home mother, I fell into a world previously unknown to me of mind-numbing extreme parenting as oppressive to the female spirit as any of the messaging to a 1950s housewife. I came to be at war with all the options, rejecting the unwinnable games proposed by both the working moms and the stay-at-home super moms. I found myself isolated in Los Angeles; a city famous for the loneliness it provokes amongst its picture-perfect palm trees in their golden light. But then, I experienced an interesting, heart-rending connection with a stranger which helped me see my own identity crisis in a new light.

One evening, while I was trying to get my son to bed so I could get ready for a small cocktail party we were hosting, there seemed to be someone in our driveway. I ran down to find an old woman asking me to help open my garage because her clicker had stopped working. She scared me; her otherness, her howling loneliness, her profound disorientation, her extremely advanced age, the fact that no one in her phone book seemed to have a working number. I spent some time trying to get her information and then after failed attempts at finding someone to come get her I called the police. They were very nice and took her home. Before she left, she grabbed my hand. She held on tight and said, “thank you, for being so lovely”.

I returned to my house deeply affected by my encounter with her. I could see the party had started without me, almost without noticing my absence. I became fixated by the lost stranger; our twinning disorientation and growing invisibility.

What do you want people to think about?

I’d like people to think about the many roles women have to juggle in order to function; how their identity can become split between selfhood and motherhood and how all the invisible emotional bonds of domestic life complicate and obstruct the promises of liberation, while liberation itself should be questioned as it complicates and obstructs the powerful reality of familial love. There is something totally impossible about the way we have structured the lives of women in this culture and our time – be it the impossible to achieve beauty standard or the compartmentalization of selves between caring and self-determination. There has to be a better way. I’m looking at you late-stage capitalism. Other countries support families so that there is more co-parent participation. If the right wing of this country wants family values then they should support families in real ways – universal childcare – paid family leave for mothers and fathers. We need to move out of a 24/7/365 breakneck work culture as well because it’s not good for anyone – least of all women who get mommy tracked out of relevance.

What was the biggest challenge in making this?

Honestly, and this is not because of the subject of your publication, it was being a woman in film. I never thought of myself as a ‘woman’ artist or writer or whatever job I had, I never identified with my gender first. I was just a person trying to do things in this world. That was until I got deep into my 30s when it began to dawn on me how unfair the playing field was. I had multiple male compatriots with equivalent scripts or even less developed stories given a shot to make a film while I was told to go keep writing, the idea that it wasn’t perfect enough.

I internalized this message – that I needed to be better. I worked incredibly hard on many projects that almost went into production while watching these dear colleagues move ahead with their projects – films that weren’t perfect but they got to learn and grow. They even got to fail upwards. I looked at a lot of my female counterparts and noticed we were all in a holding area. I resisted the gender categorization until I could no longer.

There is also a bias against what could be seen as female storytelling. I’m not just talking about films with women leads or films about the female experience – I mean there is even a WAY of storytelling that is female. I did not recognize this in myself until I read an incredible book titled Meander, Spiral, Explode by Jane Alison. She articulates the hero’s journey as one that is more male while the female form in story tends to do what her title describes. When I look back at a lot of my unproduced writing I see this type of exploration of character and setting that moves into emotional reactions and interactions, that gathers steam until it explodes. So, on one level, the biggest challenge about making this film was getting to a place where I could make any film at all. Then the miracle that is Carlos Cusco at Foton.Pictures. He said yes to this film, to this story, to the exact way I wanted to tell it.

What was the development process? How did you get green lit? (Is it a studio film, a crowdsourced film, somewhere in between?)

I approached Alex Walton at WME with a fully cast film and fully developed script. I had a look book that communicated the vision of the film with great specificity. I was incredibly lucky that Alex Walton took this on and found the perfect financier in Foton.Pictures. I previously had a variety of financial commitments for the film but no one could finish the budget. Foton.Pictures came in as the sole financier which was incredible. Our budget was a low as we could possibly get it while also being able to deliver a film!

What inspired you to become a storyteller?

My mother is Egyptian and my father is American. Because I grew up going back and forth between two dramatically different countries and cultures I began to see religion as a form of storytelling. I began to see meaning as that which is found through storytelling. Being a mixed culture kid who also ended up living in yet another third culture – France – the concept of one culture or religion or idea being more right than another was never an option. I lived as I learned; that storytelling was the universal human experience. In college I studied intellectual history which is basically this history of ideas – why do we think what we do when we do, what are the greatest influences. Since I had no formal belief system of my own I became a student of as many philosophical or spiritual teachings through my university studies and beyond; I was always seeking and finding different answers to the same question; what does it mean to be alive.

After years of working on political campaigns, then founding and running an internet company, then directing environmental documentaries, I finally came to rest on a storytelling practice of my own, filmmaking. It is through writing that I continue to investigate the human condition. Many of my other projects tackle bigger ‘issues’ – from the dehumanization of Arabs to climate change, to the predatory aspects of late-stage capitalism. With The Uninvited I went for something much smaller and more intimate. And ultimately within the pages of a story of a woman wrestling with mid-life you can also see her as a storyteller – she makes up unique tales for her son. And she is in the midst of other storytellers – the big director for whom they are throwing the party – the older lost woman who keeps telling stories to find her way back to the present – her husband who falls into reminiscing about their marriage as a way to tell his story back to someone else who might help him make sense of it – even Lucien, her former lover wants to reframe their past so that they may both move on without animosity. All the characters are storytellers. So, while The Uninvited may seem like a smaller comedy about a lost woman who upends a self- obsessed couple on the night of a big party it is really about the most fundamental human thing – what are the stories we tell ourselves to find our place in this world.

What’s the best and worst advice you've received?

Best advice: It’s all in the casting. This may seem obvious but hidden in that simple statement is the real idea – your actor will be this character; they will come with a universe inside them – so make sure when you cast a role you are casting for the right reasons and not purely what gets a film made financially. You will have the great fortune of being able to lean into the actor and trust the ways in which they are advocating for the character. Ultimately it’s about creating a space for the actors to thrive. It’s a huge and magical process to learn. I’m only getting started.

I never got any bad advice!!! If I did I already forgot it. Making a film is like trying to catch fireflies with your bare hands without hurting them. If whatever you are doing isn’t working you have to pivot and keep moving towards the light.

What advice do you have for other female creatives?

We really need to support each other. Also, stick to your vision. The powers that be may not be fully aware of the ways in which they are biased against your opinions or even story telling style. It’s not personal it’s the culture.

Name your favorite woman directed film and why.

I have too many to name just one.

Mustang – Deniz Gamze Erguven
I don’t’ think I’ve ever cried harder at the end of a film. My heart simply exploded with grief and hope all at once. This film deals with something very dear to me – the social issues some women face in Muslim cultures. The director opens the film with an incredible depiction of the ‘natural state’ of 5 sisters. She shows how they are living freely with their innate equality and respect intact. That alone was a revelation for western audiences – to see these women portrayed in that way. But then the conservative voices enter the story and snatch it all away – these fearful and judgmental men come in and constrain their joy, freedom, and ultimately, life choices.

Aftersun – Charlotte Wells. The emotion, the poetry, the under explaining, the lack of typical structure, the subtlety, the tender heart on a platter.

Vagabond – Agnes Varda – this was the first film where I saw a young woman in a fully formed character of aching bravery. I didn’t know there could be films like this or leads like this until I saw this for the first time.

Fish Tank – Andrea Arnold
This is another film about a young woman coming of age without any of the trappings of typical Hollywood story telling. It is alive with humanity. It is gorgeous and small and huge and ugly and refined and raw all in one explosive passionate contradictory expression – it is totally authentic.

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