Bad pipes. The opening shot of All Happy Families travels through bad pipes. Right off the bat, co-writer and director Haroula Rose makes clear she’s making a movie about a family with plenty of dirt, rust, and leakage. A familial history of not addressing problems, as is often the case in — reader, forgive me — All Happy Families.
The siblings (played by Josh Radnor and Rob Huebel) and the parents (played by John Ashton and Becky Ann Backer) are certainly a familiar fam, especially for any midwesterners.
Haroula Rose, who previously directed Once Upon a River, grew up in the great city of Chicago. It’s where the filmmaker and musician tells the story of All Happy Families. Recently, Rose spoke with Immersive Media about her love of the city, her experience shooting there, and more.
Wanting Chicago, as well as the house, to feel like a character, did you and your team do that exactly?
With the house, it working with my production designer Ania [Bista], who is amazing, and talking to the actors and thinking about their histories. We wanted it really built-in and lived-in since their childhood. They know every single nook and cranny of it. I think some of what happens when you go back to your childhood home or those neighborhoods, it brings back so much nostalgia. It was important to have that feeling for them.
How’d you and your cinematographer Johanna [Coelho] find shooting all the beautiful brick houses in Chicago?
Well, we’d worked together on a couple projects before, so we had a bit of a shorthand. Honestly, it was really hard to find a location that you could take over that’s a two or a three flat [story] in Chicago for a couple months. So, we got lucky that it was one of those traditional red brick apartment buildings. It was filming at all times of day, just making the best use of it we could. Getting to know the neighborhood really well and trying to get all these little tiny moments in between, it was fun.
That opening shot is a pretty fun visual metaphor. Was that always your opening image for this story?
Well, I have a plumber who is very heartfelt and genuinely cares, so that was sort of real-life inspired. It was always a fun thing to toy around with, who is this person, this little guardian angel that shows up three times, telling you how to live your life? Also, the beginning and the end being complimentary, I just like doing that in general.
Sometimes you have the ending really clearly, sometimes you have the beginning really clearly figured out, and it’s just interesting how different projects take shape. I think this one was fairly clear. There was just the question at the end of, if we should see the montage during the credits or whether we should keep that or not. I wanted to keep it.
I like that there’s no resolution for a few of the conflicts. Life continues.
My co-writer, Coburn Goss, and I both wanted this to feel like real life. You’re really grounded in a place that isn’t going to make it all seem like a fairytale tied up neat at the end. I’m glad to hear you say that because I’ve read in some reviews or some takeaways or some Q & A’s where people are like, “Oh, it doesn’t feel finished. I want to know more.” But I think real life doesn’t get resolved overnight, ever. I mean, if it does, then yeah, tell me your secret.
Your co-writer is an actor. You’re a musician. How do those two different backgrounds maybe influence how you both approach scripts?
Oh, definitely. What’s helpful is me having been a director, having more of an overview, like bird’s eye view of the story and the shape of it, and him being an actor more like, okay, what are these tiny little beats and moments for lines and characters? And so, that was a complimentary situation of having the big picture perspective.
It was a huge lifesaver, honestly. In 2020, when everything shut down and we were releasing our film under these very seriously different circumstances than what we’d planned, it was really nice having something to look forward to in writing this. Again, working with some of the same people, too.
As a musician, when you direct a movie, what do you think music should and shouldn’t communicate?
Great question. I love to bring some of that later post-process upfront, so I really try to work with songwriters and composers and think about what instrumentation will work even at the script stage. For this one, it was trying to balance the comedy with the drama, so how do you find the right tonal sonic palette? What instrument is your voice that isn’t going to be overly funny or light or tropey? What can you do to make it sort of offset what’s happening on screen so that it’s supporting it, but not in an obvious way?
This one was hard because it ended up being mostly the upright bass, which I thought was a fun character to have as the lead, so to speak, sonically. And then just trying to tie it together, I want to do this on every film. So far, so good. Have the songs be in the same blanket of sound as the score, so it’s nice having a combo of original music and finding cool archival tracks.
Do you listen to music while you write?
Oh, definitely, but it can’t have lyrics in it. I get really distracted. I’m wanting to focus on the lyrics, so it’ll usually be something that’s piano based or classical or jazz. I just can’t have words in the songs if I’m writing. That’s the one qualifier.
Do you recall any of the classical music you were listening to for this one?
This one was some instrumental or ambient stuff that’s very nondescript. It was COVID. I think ambient had a moment. All of a sudden everyone’s at home a lot, and it was like, okay, I want to listen to something vibey and quiet, that’s not telling me a story all the time. It was funny seeing this movement into like, okay, I want to make my house a zen spa environment. There were all these playlists people were making that were very, very laidback.
Some of your music, like All Happy Families, has that effect where… the writing is sad, but the instrumentals or filmmaking is feel-good. How do you try to get that contrast in art just right?
I think just in general in life, I don’t feel like you can have absolute joy without a little bit of this undercurrent of melancholy. I guess at least for me, there’s always some undercurrent of sadness or even missing a moment while it’s happening. I’m hyper-aware of something when it’s really great. I’m like, oh, and now it’s going to pass. You know what I mean? It’s just always kind of there, this sense of time passing and that none of us lasts forever. The eternal is so big and beautiful and amazing, as well as sad, but that also makes it so special.
Well said. Do you relate to Josh Radnor’s character? He’s creatively lost, but from the outside, at least, you’ve been a very productive artist throughout your career.
Honestly, I don’t know if this comes to you too, but whatever we project or whatever people think on the outside isn’t necessarily compatible with what’s going on on the inside. You might feel like you have something figured out in one way, but then in other ways, you feel stuck or stalled.
I don’t know that that feeling for me has ever totally gone away. I do sometimes still feel that way. I’m like, oh, what am I doing? Everything’s taking so long. But that’s part of this life we chose. I guess these projects have their own timing. It is a lot of suffering and waiting around in between things and questioning. Unless you have other ways of balancing out your life, it can be a lot of turmoil.
Chicago is a great city for movies, music, theater, and just art in general. How did you find Chicago inspired your path as a filmmaker and musician?
It has everything, right? In high school, I was already into having my own band and doing theater. The same thing in college. And thereafter, I stayed in Chicago for a while. I was always going out and seeing shows and seeing plays. I was working at Steppenwolf, working at a local theater company, or working at a recording studio and maxing out every single experience I could.
There was also that feeling of, “Oh, I grew up here and went to school here, and now, I need to seriously get out.” I really don’t think I fully appreciated it as much until I left, which is always kind of how it goes. I’ve been in LA for a while. I lived in New York for a couple years. I lived in Spain for a couple years. Only now can I say, “Oh, Chicago’s amazing. It’s the greatest place to grow up.”
It’s the best city in the country. How was your local actors and crew there?
Chicago has incredible actors. There’s this old adage about if you want to find really good, steady actors that aren’t necessarily just trying to be famous, you’ll find them in these smaller cities, especially Chicago. So whoever doesn’t want to go to New York or LA and keep trying for the same stuff, you just find people who are excellent craftsmen. And same with the crew. I’d worked with my DP before, she’s LA-based, but everyone else was Chicago. It was awesome. Even my post-house is in Chicago.
When did you know you’d locked picture, that you got the feeling you were looking for in the movie?
It takes so much longer than you think, oh my God. At least for me, showing early rough cuts… I’ve heard other people talk about this, it’s very painful, and it honestly even feels more embarrassing in retrospect. You’re like, oh my God, how did I ever think that version was even remotely close to being done? That’s insane. But you only know it when you get to the end. You are like, what was I thinking? Or, how did I think people could see through all of that? It’s just mortifying on some level later on. So, hopefully on the next one, that’ll be easier, but probably not.
All Happy Families is now playing in theaters.
