TJ O’Grady-Peyton On Generosity and Merging the Ideals of a Thiller with a Humane Drama for ‘Room Taken’

TJ O’Grady-Peyton’s Room Taken serves as a reminder that we all would appreciate a helping hand–even if we have to extend it ourselves. One man takes a risk that could set his life back on track, but is it possible that he can return that kindness to a person who doesn’t know they are offering it? By mixing up the tones of several genres, O’Grady-Peyton paints a portrait of the human condition that could all aspire towards.

Room Taken focuses on Isaac, a down-on-his-luck immigrant who finds himself sleeping in a different place every night. When the shelters are full and friends cannot accommodate him, he finds himself bundling up on the street, the wind chilling him to the bone and the threat of violence always present. When Victoria, a blind woman, forgets her bag in a a local restaurant, Isaac kindly chases after her to her front door, and he’s face with a choice. She doesn’t know whether he left or not…would it be horrible for him to slip inside and sleep in a safer place? Due to the circumstances of the story, the dialogue is spare, and the director admits that they didn’t have to make changes to the original story.

“When I read the script, it had the majority of the story there,” O’Grady-Peyton says. “Through the developement of the film, we tweaked a few things, and I suppose things just evolved. The core concept and one of the core, climactic scenes were in the story, and that gave me great confidence in the narrative, the characters, and even the humor and emotions. We had to get the funding and as we worked on that, we were always developing moments, and the actors contributed. It’s more about trying to figure out ways of amplifying every ounce of drama. For instance, in one moment, a care worker comes into Victoria’s home and Isaac, our lead character hears her while he’s upstairs. He’s listening to their conversatoin from afar, but then we had the idea to improve it where we put him in the middle of the room and he had to hide behind corners and sneak around. Stuff like that added more suspense, and a lot of times, that was our goal.”

In a pivotal scene, Isaac silently considers whether he can take advantage of his chance to sneak into Victoria’s home. She seems like a person who would be generous to one’s struggle or plight, but the chance is too good to risk it. As Isaac stands in her doorway, he feels the warmth of her apartment hitting his back and the cold wind brushes his face. Desperate times makes us consider the most desperate actions, but did Isaac have more than one night planned from the beginning?

“That doorway moment is something we considered in terms of trying to create that drama that I was talking about,” he says. “In that shot, we added more sound to make the outside world feel more hostile and feel like the outside was more daunting. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I don’t think Isaac had a plan when he first got there. He thought that he might sneak upstairs and see if he can find someplace for one night. Over the course of the story, he felt like maybe he could hang out longer and he could get away with it. He’s not just hanging out–he’s trying to figure out what to do. But then he starts to empathize with Victoria since she’s going through a difficult time in her life, and she’ a nice person. In his way, he wanted to repay her for her kindness–even though she might not have known she was doing it.”

Some directors might feel the desire to push the thriller themes of the script more, but O’Grady-Peyton mingles together the tension of Isaac being caught with the story’s natural inclination for drama. The humor never feels forced, and it comes directly to the characters’ circumstances.

“This is my first experiment with short films in the world of suspense, and then the script and story had that baked into it this dramatic irony of what was happening with one character in a space that the other doesn’t realize,” he says. “It was important for me to make sure that the story had these moments that gave the audience different emotions to experience. A lot of films make you laugh and cry, and if you can kind of bring an audience on a journey where they feel on the edge of their seat at one moment and then laughing at another, you’re going to have a great experience.

This informed me of the stories I want to tell moving forward, because there’s nothing worse than doing the same thing over and over again–no mtter how consistent it is. You never want to be one note.”

As we leave these characters, we realize how much we will miss their bond, even though they haven’t spoken directly to each other. A lot is left unsaid, and there is a remarkable moment of dramatic tension that comes in the penultimate scene where we think these two characters will speak to one another. O’Grady-Peyton allows Isaac to open his mouth to speak, and we almost hear the words bubble up in his mouth before Victoria speaks first.

“There was a version of the script where it was more open-ended where he left after that scene that you’re talking about,” O’Grady-Peyton reveals. ‘Victoria speaking to Martin is an emotional climax in many ways, and there was a lot of discussion about what’s the best way to leave it. Some shorts act like mini features, and I think great shorts have strong endings. In the world we live in, it was nice to leave on a positive note, because of everything that we’re going through. People often say that they watch films and go to the cinema to be transported, and that’s true. Sometimes you want something to be more idealistic, you know?”