Advertisement
The Mental State centers on a high school senior named Andy (Jance Enslin) from rural Kentucky who is struggling with his mental health. Carly Pope plays the teenager’s widowed mother who is trying to get help for her son, and Alison Thornton co-stars as Andy’s high school crush Bethany. Filmmaker James Camali and Thornton talked about The Mental State, which is now available on VOD and all digital platforms.
CinemAddicts co-host Eric Holmes strongly recommends The Mental State (his rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️), and he talked to Kamali and Thornton about their movie.
I’m here with James Kamali, Allison Thornton, the director and the actor of The Mental State. This movie really shows how difficult it can be to get the mental help you need, especially with someone that might be a danger to society and someone that we would want to help in that regard.
James Camali: I think that was a huge part of the mental health approach of this film was making sure that was discussed about the person who’s going through the mental health crisis themselves, as well as their family, who’s just trying to help their loved one through the situation.
Helping them through the lack of resources and education that they have. It’s important for all of us to continue to educate ourselves and go out and have these conversations and communications. But it’s also not fully realistic to have a working single mother who’s trying to care for her son, to also have an encyclopedic knowledge of mental health and mental illnesses. It’s important to have those resources available for those who need it when they need it most. And that was a really big topic I wanted to discuss in this film.
Alison, your performance is fantastic. You character is like, you definitely don’t want anything to do with them, but at the same time it’s like, dude, if I say the wrong thing, this guy’s going to snap. Is that something that you’ve experienced in real life?
Alison Thornton: It came just through conversations with James about how we wanted Bethany to be portrayed. And I think that she definitely has good intentions. She didn’t know the extent that Andy was suffering with mental illness.
She just wanted to make sure that he had a friend and was seen. And I still think that even after this movie, it’s so important to be a helping hand to people, but also to proceed with caution and to know the signs.
I haven’t experienced anything to this extent, but I’ve definitely always tried to be there for friends who are going through mental health crises. I think that it’s so important to to just be able to be there for someone, but also encourage people to seek the help that they need and to try to destigmatize mental illness, because it’s something that so many people suffer with.
Everyone is brushed by it, whether it’s a loved one, a friend, someone in your community.
I watched this movie just before going to bed, which was probably a mistake. But, you know, it happens. As much of a downer as this movie is, I’m guessing that it wasn’t all gloom and doom during the shoot. What was the shoot like?
Alison Thornton: I mean, I had a great time. I had a lot of fun. I mean, everyone was so lovely. The cast was amazing. We’re hanging out on the weekends. On our days off, we got very close. I’m fortunate that I feel like I walked away from the set with quite a few lifelong friends, and even on set throughout the really heavy sequences, we were still finding times to laugh and to get ourselves out of it. And that’s also a testament to the set environment that James created and making everyone feel so safe with each other.
How do you snap out of that? There’s certain scenes that just emotionally wrecks you and you’re there on the day. Then like once James yells “cut!” How do you just like, snap out of it? Or do you just need to take a breath and go, “oh, that was intense.”
Alison Thornton: We definitely had to take breaths. We there were a lot of hugs. Everyone was really good about leaning on each other. And then also we’d get off work and go get food and laugh and make sure that before we all went to our separate hotel rooms, that everybody was okay. And if someone didn’t want to be alone, we’d have a movie night.
Yeah, I think it was just communication and conversations and music and movies and forcing yourself out of that state.
And James, the writing credits are yourself, Jeremy Anderson and Joshua Barclay. What’s the writing process like with three different writers on this?
James Camali: So the writing process started with myself and Joshua Barclay, and Josh took the lead on the film for a very long time, and he did a really fantastic job of building the story.
I was kind of there more as knowing that I was going to be directing it more as kind of a guiding voice, more so as a director than purely as a screenwriter. And then we got to a point where, much like the editing process, we felt like it was good to kind of bring in another person’s (viewpoint).
Because you can work on something for so long and people who are working with you, if they’re reading every draft to everybody, it ends up having a very similar perception of what’s actually going on (with the story). So we brought in Jeremy, who’s a fantastic screenwriter, to come in and help us do a little bit of a cleanup and give his thoughts on where he thought things can be punched up.
Ultimately it became the foundation for the film. And I’m really grateful that it seems like with everybody who’s watched the films that the story and the compassion and the empathy behind it has come through. That starts with the writing as the foundational block. So it was a great process with the two of them.
Eric Holmes reviews The Mental State on CinemAddicts:
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!How does writing, knowing that you’re going to direct it differ from just writing a spec script?
James Camali: I think you definitely get to put the lens on the page a lot more. I think like quite literally, in giving camera directions on the page. As far as writing from a director’s standpoint, it allowed me to put the lens on the page quite literally as far as giving camera direction on the page.
It makes the communication with the writer easier, because I have an understanding of what I’m trying to make play out in a scene. Right. So that was a big help.
And Alison, you have producer credit for Girl Gone Bad. Most all of your credits are acting. But are there more behind the scenes kind of work you aspire to in the future?
Alison Thornton: Yeah, I definitely want to get into directing and producing and writing as well. I have a group of producers here. I live in Vancouver, and we’re writing a script right now. We’re going to hopefully get that made in 2024.
I’ve always really wanted to move behind the camera and have more creative input and make more projects. Girl Gone Bad was my first time producing and it was an amazing experience. I learned so much and it just made me hungry to do more.
There is a wide berth of what a producer does. What was your producing job on Girl Gone Bad? And also in doing that, has that affected your acting just the way you approach acting in movies since then?
Alison Thornton: After working on Girl Gone Bad, I have a much deeper appreciation of the work that goes into producing. That was intense because we were filming in the middle of COVID. We had to have all of the COVID incentives going on.
My job as a producer – I got a lot of the cast on board. I was in all the auditions and helping people read for it. I was helping with the script, and a lot of my job was in post-production as well with editing and just also dealing with everyday problems that happen on set.
For the first time, being the person that people go to to solve the problems while acting in the project. It was very chaotic, but it was so fun. And I love problem solving, so I had a great time. I know that there’s so many facets of producing and I’m still learning myself, but I definitely want to use that as a vehicle to get more into directing.
James, there’s so many different jobs that you’ve had. What are some of your favorite behind the scenes jobs beyond writing and directing?
James Camali: I don’t know, I just love all of it, man. I grew up making silly movies with my friends when we were ten. Some days I was filming. Some days I was editing and still those are some of my favorite roles on set, either as a camera operator or as an editor. I think those two are the ones I gravitate the most towards, but I just love filmmaking.
I love every nook and cranny of it, and I love being involved. There’s some parts that I’m just not very good at. I don’t know if I have the patience for VFX and I’m just not a fantastic colorist, but I still love every aspect of it.
What does a colorist specifically do?
James Camali: Every camera sensor kind of captures what you’re looking at, what it’s looking at differently. And you can change a bunch of settings on your camera.
Ultimately you’re capturing, in some cases, like a raw image that has a lot of light information and color information in it. And then what happens is once you bring it to the editing process and post-production process, once you have your edit, a colorist will come in and basically bring in a lot of the vibrancy and saturation and help develop more of that color palette that we get to see these images through.
And that ultimately helps convey even more mood and tone throughout pieces and with the editing.
What makes a good edit?
James Camali: I think it’s different for every film. You’re trying to figure out the pace and tone of every film and trying to understand where the important beats to breathe and settle are in a film. That’s so different in whatever type of genre you’re working in.
(The Mental State) has a mixed bag of genres. So understanding of how does a thriller typically cut versus how does a family drama typically cut and needing to balance that. I think ultimately it’s knowing the story that. you’re trying to cut four
Alison, what qualities do you admire in another actor?
Alison Thornton: Oh, there’s so many. I really appreciate being present as an actor, not trying to just execute a plan or come in with a predetermined way of doing the scene and then muscling that into happening.
It’s really important as an actor to breathe and react to everything that’s happening in the scene, and you can do the same scene five different ways and tell a different story every time. Just being open enough and relaxed enough to be able to receive that.
As an actor. I think a big pitfall that I try to avoid myself is, is just having, because obviously, as the actor, you have to intellectually know the skeleton of the scene and the story that you’re telling, but you don’t necessarily need to know how you’re going to react to information that you’re receiving in the scene.
So much of it comes down to just breathing and relaxation and prep before you get there and then sitting in the scene. And kind of just forgetting all the prep and being open to whatever happens.
We do have a what’s in the box segment and in the segment we have people put movies into the box. What’s a movie that each of you would like to put into the box?
James Camali: This is the one that just came to me, but there’s a Japanese movie called Sweet Bean (from director Naomi Kawase). It’s just such a lovely Japanese sweet movie. It’s about this guy who’s working at a sweet bean shop. It’s like kind of a pastry that you can get in Japan that has, like a sweet bean spread. And this relationship he develops with this old woman who wants to work there. And it’s very sweet.
Alison Thornton: I know everybody knows this movie, but the first one that came to mind was The Adventures of Milo and Otis. I feel like we need to talk about that one way more. Bring it back! We need to watch it, like, annually at least!
Alison and James, thanks for joining me. The Mental State is now on VOD and all digital platforms. I really hope a lot of people watch this. And to what I mentioned earlier, it brings up a bunch of problems with mental issues. They’re getting help, and I think that’s really important and not easy for everyone. And I cannot tell you how excited I was to see that you included that into the movie.
James Camali: Thank you so much, Eric. I really appreciate everything you brought to the conversation today.
Alison Thornton: Thank you.
The Mental State is now out on VOD and available on all Digital Platforms.
Rent/purchase The Mental State on Amazon to support Deepest Dream (we receive a slight commission)
For Daily Movie Recommendations and Converation, join our CinemAddicts Facebook Group!
