Writer-director Kris Elgstrand, Cast Arabella Bushnell, Brad Dryborough and [correction Ross Smith] and Producer/Director of Photography Amy Belling.
Revenge Songs Left on Voice Mail. How does a movie about quiet office worker Carol (Arabella Bushnell) who calls people names and threatens to kill them in original songs not end up with Carol in jail? Somehow her torch-singer honesty triggers a release in the people she knows. Like her boss “Asshole Dave” (Brad Dryborough), who leaves his job and pursues his abandoned dream of rock stardom with exhausting pent-up zeal.
“If you hate [the film], put it in a song and we’ll have a great, enormous sharing experience,” Vancouver filmmaker Kris Elgstrand joked with the crowd at the RIO theatre screening on Saturday night. No one took him up on the offer, mostly because they really liked his first feature film but also because it’s not easy to do what Elgstrand does in writing and composing all these original — sometimes violent — songs.
Asked how much of his performance was improvised, long-time collaborator Brad Dryborough, aka “Asshole Dave”, said very little of the film is unscripted. That’s just the way Kris Elgstrand writes — very naturalistic.
One of Carol’s original songs: I’m Sick of Everyone.
[sz-youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTUgpXsqXdk” /]
Songs She Wrote About People She Knows still.
Catch the second screening tomorrow, September 30th, at 4:45 pm in the Vancity Theatre.