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TIFF 2010

(L-R) Madeline Carroll, Rob Reiner and Callan McAuliffe on the set of Flipped (Photo by Ben Glass)


Hollywood’s most jovial, maybe even downright jubilant, director-producer-actor-writer plans to make audiences feel the same heart-swelling joy he experienced while reading Wendelin Van Draanen’s best-selling young adult book "Flipped" with his stirring and sweet film adaptation.

Rob Reiner, whose work has ventured from gripping coming-of-age tales (Stand By Me) to honest looks at relationship dynamics (When Harry Met Sally) to one of the best music/concert films ever made (Spinal Tap, obviously) keeps it nostalgic with Flipped, a story about first crushes, suburban woes, disappointing parents and, of course, love, as told by two pre-teen narrators; young, love-struck tomboy Juli (Madeline Carroll) and oblivious prettyboy Bryce (Callan McAuliffe).

Cineplex recently chatted with the effervescent 60-something on the phone from New York and found out why you won’t see any texting in this movie, when he knew he found his leads and how getting the movie to the big screen was a family affair.

CINEPLEX: I read that your son had a hand in getting this film made, in terms of introducing you to the source material.

ROB REINER: Yeah, his name is Nick and he was 11 years old at the time, he was in 10th grade, now he’s almost 17, and he brought this book home from school and we read it together and I literally flipped over it. I couldn’t believe how intelligent the writing was and how well thought through it was and how it really captured the feelings you have when you’re 12-going-on-13 and you have those first very confusing, powerful feelings of falling in love. And I also loved the convention the author set up which was to literally flip back and forth between the boy’s point of view and the girl’s point of view. My son Nick said, ‘You know Dad, I think this would make a great movie.’ And I said, ‘You’re absolutely right.’

CINEPLEX: Does the movie satisfy a certain desire to bring a Stand By Me-type movie to a new generation?

RR: That’s exactly right. I’ve always viewed this as a companion to Stand By Me. It takes place in that same time period when I went from 12 to 13 and in Stand By Me it examines the strength of friendship and this one examines the powerful first feelings of love. They’re meant to be companions to each other.

CINEPLEX: Is that part of why you changed the time period from present-day to late ‘50s-early ‘60s for the film adaptation?

RR: Well that’s when I came of age, that’s when I first fell in love and had those feelings. And I also kind of wanted to strip away all of the distractions kids have now with Facebook and Twitter and texting and all that and just focus on the feelings you have, which are basically the same. They’re no different back then than they are now it’s just that there are a lot of distractions these days.

CINEPLEX: With you co-writing the screenplay, did you tap into any particular stories or memories from your youth and add them to the mix?

RR: All of the feelings are the same but I stuck pretty well to the novel. I mean, [Wendelin Van Draanen] wrote a great novel. It’s a wonderful blueprint for the film and it works. All of those segments that you see in the movie – whether it’s the eggs or the tree or the dinner sequence – all of those things are in the book.

CINEPLEX: As much as the film's about a boy and a girl and them discovering their feelings for each other, it’s also about the relationships they have with their parents and discovering that they're flawed like everyone else. Was it important for you to touch on that aspect, in addition to the young love theme?

RR: Yes, that was a very important part of the film, to see how these two kids grow up in these two households. On the one side you have Bryce and his family, which looks like the kind of perfect, post-war suburban lifestyle. Everything looks nice – they’ve got the two cars, a beautiful house – but underneath there’s a dysfunction there because the father is very unhappy by how his life is unfolding and he’s got a lot of anger and he takes out a lot on the Lotskis, who live across the street. And on the surface, their life looks like…the house is run-down, the lawn is unkempt yet underneath, you have this great family there with great values and they basically inculcated their daughter [Juli] with these great values and she grows up with these values. And so you see the difference in how family affects what happens to a child when they grow up.

Flipped
McAuliffe and Carroll share a moment in Flipped (Photo by Ben Glass)


CINEPLEX: A big part of being able to tell that story properly is in the casting. How did you know when you had your Juli and your Bryce?

RR: I’d seen Madeline Carroll in Swing Vote, which is a Kevin Costner movie, and she was the first girl who came in to read for me and she was absolutely perfect, exactly what I was looking for. She had the right look, the right strength and intelligence. She had this kind of tomboyish quality I was looking for but underneath this kind of really sweet, innocent, sexy quality, almost like an Audrey Hepburn kind of thing. And the boy was very hard to find. Callan McAuliffe, who comes from Australia, his tape was sent to us through the Internet. And I was a little concerned cause he had this thick, Aussie accent but he could put on this American accent at will and I flew in him in to Los Angeles to have him read with Madeline and they read perfectly together. I wouldn’t have made the movie unless I knew I had two kids that could do what needed to be done – after all, they do carry the movie and they’re 13 years old so you want to make sure they have the stuff. They both have incredibly developed crafts.

CINEPLEX: What does the term "flipped" mean to you? It’s obviously the name of the film, and it’s mentioned quite a few times in it, but how does it fit in to the larger story?

RR: It’s two things. One is the idea that you flip out for somebody, you fall in love, you flip for somebody. And then the other thing is, literally, the points of view are flipped back and forth between the boy and the girl.

CINEPLEX: Have you been able to watch it with an audience yet and take in their reactions?

RR: I’ve watched it with a number of audiences and every single audience we’ve played it to has gone nuts for it. I mean, it works for young people, middle-aged, older people and every age group can get something different out of it. It’s one of those pictures, you know, parents can take their kids, they can go with their grandparents and everyone can enjoy it.

--

Flipped opens in select Cineplex theatres August 27.



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