It all starts with a Nicki Minaj shower curtain…
There is a gloriously unexpected quality to Jessica Sanders film, I Want to Feel Fun. You never know what the characters are going to do or say yet you feel like you know who they are or you relate to them because you recognize yourself in them. Sanders’ film passes us along from Esther Povitsky’s relationship woes to Avi Rothman’s audition trauma with a comedic breeziness that sitcoms wish they could grasp onto. Sanders admits that a lot of it was found in the moment, but it all began when she saw a certain rapstress’ image staring back at her from Povitsky’s bathroom.
“There was actually no script,” Sanders reveals. “Stories overlapping and interlocking was kind of a fun way to tell a story for me. [This] was inspired by Esther Povitsky’s shower curtain which I had seen before Nicki played in downtown Los Angeles. I told Esther that we should film her trying to get into Nicki’s show, so it felt like an improvised creative experiment to see if I could make a movie without a script. When you collaborate with amazing talent like Esther, Vivian, and Avi [Rothman], you can make magic. I wanted to capture the spirit of fun.”
Vivian Bang, who plays Rothman’s girlfriend in Fun, feels that the energy of their friendship behind the camera easily translates to the on-screen banter and chemistry. In this case, not having a script was liberating.
“The experience was so fun for me, and I think that’s why you see it on screen,” Bang says. “Jessica, Avi, Esther, and I were all friends before making this, so we already had a shorthand into what we all thought was funny. Creating these characters was easy for us, and we could access them kind of like our shadow selves. Since we are all friends, it was fun for us to explore–it felt so pure. We didn’t have a lot of contrived setups, so it felt natural to me. I met the woman who was going to play my mon the morning that we shot that scene, and started speaking Korean together and it brought a sense of play. That mother-daughter relationship felt like something that I could channel. Jessica lets her actors play and she can capture or grab what she needs. I love working like that, because it gives us so much freedom to just be.”
“Because I have backgrounds in docs and in comedy narratives, I like combining actors with non-actors,” Sanders says. “Vivian’s family was not played by actors. It’s my friend who is a lawyer and his family who live in Koreatown, so we kind of plopped into their family dinner and blended in the scene into their actual life. I just think the texture is very fun to play with.”
Going for it is the only way to lean into the outrageousness of some scenes. Esther is worried about her relationship with Simon (Rex, that is), and after they begin making out, he tells her that she needs to brush her teeth again. Sanders cuts to Simon not only instructing her on how to brush her teeth but literally doing it for her.
“Oh, I was smiling the entire time,” Sanders admits. “I found complete joy in all of these situations and moments, and If I’m smiling, I feel like my audience is too. Esther did have a boyfriend who would come over late, eat her food, sleep in her bed, and leave in the morning because of a parking situation. We enhanced this experience that she had. We have all had a bad breath moment, but that was all Simon.”
“Good for Esther for going with it!” Bang adds.
“It was about framing a great shot and just going in and getting it really,” Sanders says. “I like hard cuts, so I liked going from the make out to the brushing of the teeth to them being in bed together. I am very visual, so even though it’s improv, the scenes have structure and an arc to them. I am always think editorially at the same time, but you don’t do multiple takes when you’re shooting a doc. I am not a dissolve director–I love a good, hard cut to keep it moving.”
When Avi has dinner with Vivian’s family, he knows that they are talking about him, and he keeps having to remind people that he is not a model but an actor. Sanders keeps cutting back to Avi’s face as Vivian and her mother speak in Korean and he has to decipher whether they are talking about his skills as a performer. Sanders doesn’t have to explain everything to us, and we immediately pick up on the comedic discomfort at play.
“I was so trigged by my parents who were obviously disapproved of his career choices, so it’s like this natural defensiveness is coming out,” Bang says. “They are speaking in Korean, but Avi can pick up on some antagonism. That was fun for me, because I know so many creative people are second-guessing or doubting our life choices. It only takes a small statement from a parent to make you feel like you’re 13 again. The woman who played my mom is not an actress, but she is one of the best actors I’ve ever played a scene with.”
“Even though there is no script, everything is based in exaggerated truth,” Sanders says. “Avi plays a commercial actor, and I actually auditioned him for a cereal commercial where I was directing it. We made the entire thing more ridiculous, and we made it more about him maybe being ashamed of not being worthy as a commercial actors to Vivian’s family. We take [those truths], but we turn it up a little more. That blend of enhanced truths also makes the story resonate because everyone’s kind of pulling from something that’s authentic.”
It all comes down to a simple question posed by Avi to Esther near the end of the film: “What is is about Nicki Minaj that interests you?” Fun proves that you can take the confidence and energy of someone else in order to give yourself a better, fresher perspective.
“I kept wondering what Esther and Nicki have in common,” Sanders says. “They look nothing alike, and Esther told me that they are both strong women. There’s something about her wanting to connect and trying to get in somewhere that fits a lot of people in Los Angeles.”
