An enormous number of people wake in the morning with hearts full of hate
| Published date | 19 January 2022 |
The now 40-year-old says that it ultimately led to him making Mass, which marks his writing and directing debut.
The new Sky Original film follows two sets of bereaved parents, Jay and Gail (Jason Isaacs and Martha Plimpton) and Linda and Richard (Reed Birney and Ann Dowd), who meet years after a school shooting tore their lives apart. The hope is that talking about the unspeakable tragedy will help them all move forward. Mostly shot on one set, the entirety of the couples' discussion unfolds in real-time onscreen, and it is an intimate, nuanced, and devastating exploration of grief, anger, and acceptance.
For the cast, "this was a film unlike anything we had ever done, or even read", notes New York native Martha, who first rose to fame thanks to her role in classic 80s adventure film The Goonies.
The 51-year-old explains: "I know each of us had our own concerns. When each of us found out who was going to be in it and what it would be like, it was scary, it was daunting.
"We had no time, we had no money, but we jumped right in."
For a horrifying number of people, school shootings are a lived experience. And yet, it's a subject that's rarely talked about on-screen.
Fran - who has starred in the film The Cabin in the Woods and the TV series Dollhouse - explains he wanted to focus on a "really human story".
For two years, he read nothing but subject material for the project.
"But it started as just a concern, as a person, as a parent," he said. "I didn't have a movie in mind - I was working on another screenplay".
One of the reasons Fran wanted to make Mass is because he is "so worried"
about his country.
"When I was doing research, just because I have my own personal concern and frustration, coming across these stories I thought, 'If people knew more about the families and the survivors and the children and the teachers, and if this was someone you knew, someone you were close with, you would feel so differently and so passionately about figuring this out immediately'."
Interestingly, the filmmaker had studied the work of South Africa's post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC) while at college years ago.
He recalls watching the documentary Long Night's Journey into Day, about four amnesty trials for people who'd confessed to heinous...
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