SF IndieFest: Jimmy and Judy
We first heard about Jimmy and Judy at this year's IndieFest benefit party, when Bruce Fletcher, the Fest's director of programming, excitedly announced to us that it was his "new favorite movie."
High praise indeed! While we had hoped to see the film on the big screen at its IndieFest premiere on February 4, when we heard that Edward Furlong and Rachael Bella, the stars of the movie (and who are involved in real life), were going to be in town doing interviews earlier that day, we scammed a screener so we could talk to them without sounding completely ignorant.
While to subject matter of Jimmy and Judy may be shocking to some, its themes are universal: frustration, alienation, and crazy adolescent love. Jimmy is a monipulative 21-year-old a**hole, who insists on living his live behind a video camera. Judy is the outcast teenager whom he woos by punishing the classmates who have tormented her and trips to the gun range. In the vein of obsessive love road movies such as Natural Born Killers, our young heros end up on the wrong side of the law, and in increasingly surreal predicaments.
While the actual situations the characters find themselves in aren't the most original or relatable -- for example, there's a clearly meant-to-be-shocking scene where Jimmy films his unsuspecting parents, played by the game Gay Storm and 90210 patriarch James Eckhouse, as they engage in a little light S/M role play and some pegging. The implication that seeing two consenting, married adults engaging in that kind of play seemed sweetly provincial to us. This was our attitude for a lot of the more intentionally bizarre aspects of the film -- that we love the idea of an audience that's still capable of being shocked by dildoes, raving meth heads, and full frontal nudity, but to us it's just another ride on the damned N Judah.
To us, the heart of the film was in the relationship and power-play between the main characters. We were truly engaged by the evolution of their romance as the film progressed, and found it to provide some of the mose genuine moments we've seen at IndieFest thus far.
See Jimmy and Judy Sunday 9:30 PM at the Women's Building.
We sat down with Eddie and Rachael at the Plush Room in the York Hotel, all of us drinking soda (really!) and eating the bar-provided mixed nuts.
We're a website all about San Francisco, so I have to ask: are you having fun in San Francisco? Talk to us about us!
Eddie: Oh, yeah, I've been here a few times before, and I really like it. You know what I really like? Oakland, and everything they have going on there. A lot of the stuff here seems played out, but Oakland, Telegraph, man, that's just beautiful. Hey, is Blondie's pizza still here?
Yeah, down on Powell, by the cable car turn?
Eddie: Yeah (turns to Rachel). We've got to go there.
Well, I saw the movie, and, dang, good job! We know that the film was shot in Northern Kentucky, and in the press materials they included the articles on the trouble you got into at Meijer (a midwestern 24-hour grocery superstore) I know I was supposed to be making some other connections, but all I could think of was how much I missed Meijer. Why don't we have Meijers out on the West Coast?
Eddie: I know, so you could by a chainsaw 24 hours a day
Rachael: Or tires...
Eddie: At first, I was in love with Meijer. Then I went through this hate period. We lived next door to Meijer, so it was, like, our fucking hangout.
Yeah, my sister and I used to do that. We'd have nothing to do, everything would be closed, so we'd go walk around Meijer. So, you didn't get, like, banned from Meijer?
Rachael: He didn't get banned, but every time we'd go in there everyone would be all "Hey, lobster boy!"
Eddie: They should be thanking me! I got them good publicity.
At this point we go into a little bit of a tangent.We promise that it's not that interesting. We will tell you that Eddie and Rachael have 5 cats, one dog, and a bird. Fine, we talked about litter box cleaning. See, we told you you wouldn't be interested.
OK, getting back to the movie. The way I accessed it -- since, clearly, a lot of the situations weren't ones to which I could easily relate, since I've never, say, killed anyone...
Rachael: You haven't? You loser!
Eddie: You suck!
I know, I know. But I'm young, yet. But I think one aspect of the film that almost everyone can relate to is that insane, high school intense love thing, where it's the only thing that matters in the entire fucking world...I was wondering, since I know both of you started working when you were pretty young...
Rachael: I was eight years old
Wow! And I know Eddie was a little older
Eddie: I was 13.
So, since you guy were fairly atypical adolescents, did you guys still get to experience that kind of crap?
Eddie: You've got to go through adolescence, no matter what, in one way or another.
Rachael: I quit when I was 14 for exactly that reason, I wanted to have a normal life instead of a career.
But were you teased like your character was? I have to admit, when I watched the movie I found how your character was treated a little hard to believe. No one who looked like you got teased, let alone tormented the way Judy was, at my high school.
Rachael: You'd be surprised. I was teased a lot, I had long dark hair, so people called me "witch". Kids can always think of ways to mess with you. I'd say it was as bad or worse as how it was for Judy.
Eddie: I never went to high school -- I was always home schooled. But I definitely had my share of crazy, crazy relationships. There's no way to hide from adolescence. And those young love arguments! They were always so, so intense.
Oh, yeah! I remember one point where things are fine, then it's like, flash, Judy gets super super pissed and I thought "I totally remember pulling that shit with my boyfriend!"
Raclael: Oh, yeah, I don't think Judy's even that weird a character, just her circumstances are. It was pretty easy to pull from my own experiences to play her, especially in situations like that.
That's the other thing -- when the movie starts out, it's all about Jimmy and his need for control, but by the end of the movie it was clear, at least to me, that Judy was the really strong one, and the one calling the shots, in the relationship. It's pretty subtle, but it totally happens.
Rachael: Yeah, girls do that. Don't you think?
We both laugh as Eddie grimaces. This only makes us laugh more
Eddie: OK, yeah, you're right. When you watch the movie, you'll see that Jimmy has lots and lots to say in the beginning, then he sloooowly fades out, and she takes over.
And I have to say that I like the Judy at the end of the movie so much more than the one at the beginning.
Rachael: Oh, yeah, me too.