Premiering at the Berlinale, ‘Matt and Mara’ has the foundations of a ‘Will-they-won’t-they?’ romantic comedy but ends up as a far more knotty ‘What-if-they-could?’ study of unspoken bonds. Euronews Culture sits down with the director and lead actor to talk about the film.
Canadian director Kazik Radwanski specialises in interpersonal dynamics – specifically the ones that go unnamed.
Following his 2019 film Anne at 13,000 ft, which also premiered at the Berlinale, Radwanski reteams with Deragh Campbell (Never Eat Alone, Anne from Anne at 13,000 ft) and Matt Johnson (director of The Dirties and last year’s critically acclaimed BlackBerry) for Matt And Mara.
Premiering in this year’s Berlinale Encounters section – a rather fitting sidebar name, all things considered – it sees teacher Mara (Campbell) welcoming her students to poetry class. As she is about to head into the classroom, her old friend Matt (Johnson), a published author, surprises her by randomly crashing the lesson. No matter how intrusive this may seem, she can’t manage to conceal a smile.
They spend time together, reconnect, and end up taking a road trip to a conference Mara is attending. The tension between the two friends gradually becomes too close for comfort – and too close for a marriage, as Mara has a life with her husband Samir (Mounir Al-Shami) and their young daughter.
Sound familiar? It is on paper, but Radwanski likes to play with expectations. He avoids traditional storytelling arcs you’ve seen a dozen times in romantic comedies, and instead crafts a compelling study of how one deals with an unresolved past – and now present. And there are no easy answers – or attempts at clichéd sentiment – along the way.
Euronews Culture sits down with Kazik Radwanski and Matt Johnson to talk about Matt and Mara, what constitutes infidelity, and how what goes unsaid may hold more power than spoken words…
Euronews Culture: After seeing the film and recommending it to others, people have asked me to describe it. The best I could come up with was: It’s less a “Will-they-won’t-they?” romantic film and more a “What-if-they-could?”. How would you describe Matt And Mara?
Matt Johnson: Oh, that’s a really brilliant way of describing it! If I had to describe the film, I would say that it’s about two people who loved one another as kids, finding each other as adults when one of them is married and with a kid. And she doesn’t tell him that she’s married with a kid. That’s what I say to people, even though that may or may not be accurate because we don’t see that in the film – we don’t know if she tells him or not, and Matt does seem to know at a certain point that they are married. But I like the way that you describe it – “What if they could?” Because it is a movie in some ways about potential.
Kazik Radwanski: Yes, potential. Or maybe what’s going on between them is something they don’t name or don’t want to name. Or maybe that Mara wants to be able to exist and interact with Matt without context. “What if they could?” is good.
Matt Johnson: It’s a brilliant reframing of it, because the tension is not whether these characters actually love one another and do they want to get together because they clearly do. And it is the context that they put themselves in, through the separation, that has made that impossible – which is what makes this reframing so interesting. It’s also why Brief Encounter is such a perfect comp for the movie, because that’s another “What if they could?”, right? You watch that film and you think, “Oh god, these guys could be so happy together”, but of course they can’t. It’s not allowed.
