Interview: A Talk With Director Tom Sierchio From THE GIRL WHO INVENTED KISSING

Despite how a shallow mind may perceive the value of a mentally handicapped timid man or a destitute, drug-taking drifter, through Director Tom Sierchio's eyes, there's so much more to them than the biased judgments of ordinary people.

"Don't let anyone tell you that's a bad thing, cause it's not," insists the drifter, a nameless, bonny girl (Suki Waterhouse) in between drags of a marijuana cigarette to her intellectually disabled new friend Victor (Dash Mihok) of their shared weirdness in Sierchio's poignant directorial debut, The Girl Who Invented Kissing. "It's a good thing. Only the mediocre are always at their best and I can tell already, that ain't us."

See the NYC Premiere of 'The Girl Who Invented Kissing' on February 24, 2018 @9:15 pm at Cinema Village (22 East 12th Street) as part of New York City's 7th Annual Winter Film Awards International Film Festival. Winter Film Awards' Lianna Albrizio spoke with Tom Sierchio about his approach to making his film and what drew him to this subject.

The lass, a rootless vagabond who "buses it" to places of her liking, is dropped off in the scrappy suburban town of Bloomfield, New Jersey enraptured by the beauty of Fall's foliage, a place that "wasn't anything special, but wasn't too bad either," she muses, and somewhere she wished to stay awhile. With nothing but a warm hooded jacket, a backpack holding a change of clothes, a book, a blanket and a winsome smile, the mysterious drifter first piques the interest of Victor when he catches a glance of her while standing in line at a savings bank and impulsively follows her to a nearby convenience store. Browsing the greeting cards, they meet when she shares a hilarious card: "If something really big and scary and ugly and hairy is following you around this Halloween, don't be frightened," Victor deadpans aloud before opening the zinger, "It's just your fat ass!"

Besides their turbulent pasts, the newfound comrades' shared humor is what bonds the two as they forge a friendship and cultivate joy wherever they can.

Meanwhile, Victor, a Hank Snow aficionado, periodically peeves a patient record store owner Leo (Luke Wilson) with his constant inquiries for new music when he knows Snow - a lauded Canadian country singer in the 1950s and '60s - has been dead for some time. Victor is mentally disabled and half-deaf as a result of a childhood accident during which he saved his brother Jimmy (Vincent Piazza) after their alcoholic father drove THE FAMILY car into the icy cold depths of the Passaic River. Victor calls the past trauma "an act of God," but Jimmy reaffirms the public's flippant view of his older brother as "the lummox."

In the face of this precarious relationship and others that unravel throughout the film, what's perhaps another godsend is the girl's ephemeral yet powerful presence in their lives who imbues new meaning in something as mundane as a kiss. Mother Teresa once said "some people come in our life as blessings. Some come in your life as lessons." This girl is a little of both.

Lianna Albrizio: Tell me about the bond between Suki's character and Victor. These are two individuals who share traumatic pasts and found refuge and respect in each other as individuals.

Tom Sierchio: I think you hit it on the head. I think the script describes them sitting on the school steps as two befriended stray dogs. They both didn't fit in for whatever reason. The girl has more mystery to her. I try not to be too cerebral when I write something; sometimes it's just something that feels right. They didn't fit in and whoever she ran from to be at the point where she is and not judging Victor.

Lianna: What inspired the storyline? Did you know of anyone personally who was homeless or had a disability?

Tom: There's a bunch of pieces that fell together. I do a lot of character stuff and a lot of times combine in bits and pieces. Gentle giant characters - the loveable lummox character as big as a tree who can certainly defend himself. And I also wanted to do a sibling story - two brothers. I have two sisters; I thought it would be neat to do a brother story. I was watching FORENSIC FILES and there was a story about a girl up in Alaska. [They] found her body on the side of the road on a trucking route, this poor girl; no one knew who she was. I think that's where Suki's character came from - this girl who comes into town, this drifter, and that's what makes her different. They have their s together and you think there can't be anything wrong with her, and she's hip, she's cool, there's something underlying there. Attractive gives her more mystery. She's a model... it wasn't necessarily what we were going for. [There's] something about her when people looked up... charisma or physical beauty something about her.

Lianna: The film is peppered with a lot of symbolism - namely, leaves and the crucifix above the girl's head while she's doing drugs in the bar's bathroom. In some cultures, leaves are a symbol of sadness and also renewal. I also see a juxtaposition of Christian symbolism and the idea of God's doing and everything happening for a reason. (e.g. how Victor's accident saving his brother was an "act of God"). Was this your intended interpretation for these symbols and the theme for the movie?

Tom: As far as the leaves, I wanted to get the autumn feel. When I wrote the script, that feel of [a] great blanket over everything in the autumn, and I remember writing about characters blowing into the door like leaves. And the whole thing [about] Victor being as big as a tree, [it was] flowery language for the writing, especially with trees in the end when they plant the tree for the girl. [In] autumn things are kind of dormant; that's what I was going for with the characters. This dormant part of their lives: they're stuck, and this girl shakes up the leaf pile. I think there is something melancholy about dry leaves blowing in the grey autumn breeze.

I grew up in the same town where it takes place in Bloomfield. In an Italian/Irish Catholic community, that part of northern Jersey there's religious stuff everywhere: statues, crosses.... a genuine feel. Their grandma used to run the bar with them. When Victor says "an act of God," this is stuff his grandma used to say to him, a "catch phrase," so Victor very much mimics a lot of Catholic symbolism landscape of these characters - the statue of Mary. I think a lot of characters, not necessarily church-going, [are] bonded by their faith.

Lianna: Speaking of symbolism, the car that Suki leaves in towards the end of the film is white. Was that color meant to indicate heaven?

Tom: We were looking for a car you would recognize as the drug car. We did want to play it under the streetlight when she was walking away in Victor's vision. She's walking in the sun glowing around her... so we decided to use it more than on the car. We toyed with putting some hard light on the white car. Serendipitously, it worked out. The girl doesn't have a name [or] a backstory. I was never big on backstories; I wanted her to be a mystery. I looked on Wikipedia and doing research I found out Suki's real name is Alice and Alice was the name I gave the girl. I didn't tell anyone about it. Of all the girls' names it happened to be the same as Suki's and I didn't find out months after we completed the film... that was the name I secretly I gave the girl.

Lianna: Things happen for a reason.

Tom: Whenever you cast a film [and you have] someone else in mind, you couldn't ever imagine anyone else in the role. Some passed on it; I can't imagine anyone other than Dash in that part, and he won back-to-back awards. I felt it was well-deserved. He did have a personal connection - Dash has Tourette's. It's a little sad to watch because he had it bottled up all day and he releases it. He might have been made fun of for his condition. When we first got together we both agreed he should play it straight and add nuances with his characters. I think he was fantastic.

Lianna: The film is set around Thanksgiving, a holiday to express gratitude for the things in life for which we are most appreciative, and of course, those "hallelujah" moments in life. Is this why the film was set in autumn?

Tom: Specifically, the Thanksgiving scene is such a family kind of holiday. There's always people coming back into town and in this case, it's a makeshift family - you have the two brothers then everyone else joins them... It shows how all the characters are little islands and come together with each other. A Norman Rockwell painting of Thanksgiving, and although they're not a Norman Rockwell painting, it's still that specific holiday where people come together and feel better... [like] orphans, but they found each other for a reason.

Lianna: Victor is an interesting name for the character. Was his name based on what the word implies?

Tom: Originally, I was thinking about a name for a big lummox and there's the Frankenstein Victor, [Baron] Victor Von Frankenstein, the mad scientist who created the monster... a little bit he is the victor in the end. As much as everyone makes fun of him, it turns out he's THE ONE who has his s together the most.

Lianna: I noticed there is smoking in the bar. Was the movie set in the 1990s?

Tom: I made a conscious effort to use no cell phones so the place felt like a throwback time. These people are stuck in their lives. It's almost like time passed them by a little bit figuratively. I wanted to keep it timeless. No specific time period.

Lianna: What was the overall message of the film? Was it that people come into your life for a reason and that we are all meant to be where we are and who we are for a reason?

Tom: When Irene's mom says, "judge ye not," that poor girl we never even knew her name. That's the message: we're all the same. Things happen for a reason. She came into their lives. Victor feels that. By the end, everyone kind of gets it.

Lianna: Regarding the title, The Girl Who Invented Kissing - it's clear to me that the girl may have given Victor his first kiss. And when I think of the word "invented" I think original or special. Is that what you meant in having her called that?

Tom: I think a lot of these things work out that way. My parents had a Hank Snow album with the noose on it - a he was a big country star - The Gal Who Invented Kissing . How can I work that into there? It is his first time [kissing a] girl. Even if it was just platonic and his reaction to it, it worked out. I had that idea for the title: she invented it for him. It didn't start out that way, but worked out that way.

The Bruce Springsteen song, Streets of Philadelphia, he wrote for the film Philadelphia and in that song - watching the movie, a character has AIDS - nowhere is that mentioned. It's universal. You can relate to the character in that song to whatever. Maybe you were sick, it's a depression, you don't fit in ... everyone can put it towards his or her own experiences.

Lianna: Why did you think Suki Waterhouse was right for the main role?

Tom: I wanted someone who was not known enough. She was just as mysterious as the girl. I was given a take of her auditioning for Westworld on HBO and when I was watching there was something different about her that was "wow." I just saw this ability in her and vulnerability in her as well. She just had something going on beneath the lines she was reciting. When we Skyped she was in London walking around with her Mac going everywhere and was totally this carefree, free spirit. I thought, "Wow, this is the girl". She sold me just by being herself. The first reading she totally nailed it.

Lianna: Did you always want to shoot a movie in Bloomfield?

Tom: Bloomfield is very much like Staten Island. I was visiting a friend in Bloomfield and I saw they were shooting a movie and I was very jealous they were shooting a movie in my hometown. Part of it was that jealously. (laughs). It's a bustling place. Kids run around. [The] two of them on the steps shows a little bit of loneliness. Right where they were sitting, I used to line up on those steps. You forget these are people too, and sometimes you need someone to remind you... hey, Victor is one of us; he's a good guy.

By Lianna Albrizio for Winter Film Awards. Lianna Albrizio is an award-winning local journalist from the Greater New York City area. She loves writing about the arts.

About Winter Film Awards

New York City's 7th Annual Winter Film Awards International Film Festival runs February 22-March 3 2018. Check out our jam-packed lineup of 93 fantastic films in all genres from 31 countries, including Animation, Drama, Comedy, Thriller, Horror, Documentary and Music Video. Hollywood might ignore women and people of color, but Winter Film Awards celebrates everyone!

Winter Film Awards is an all volunteer, minority- and women-owned registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded in 2011 in New York City by a group of filmmakers and enthusiasts. The program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the NY State Council on the Arts.

Website Facebook Twitter

To post a comment, you must register and login.