Written for TheFix
An exclusive interview with Adam Salky about directing Sarah Silverman in “I Smile Back.”
Oh, addicts. Slippery and charming until everything falls apart. Watching Laney Brooks (Sarah Silverman) unravel is like rubbernecking at an Oscar-worthy disaster. Anyone who has ever been close to an addict or mentally ill person—which is practically everyone, right?—will watch transfixed.
I Smile Back won Official Selection this year at Sundance, Toronto International, and Chicago International film fests. This is the second feature film directed by Adam Salky (Dare) and both of his movies received Grand Jury Prize nominations at Sundance in 2009 and 2015.
Laney lives a cushy life in the suburbs in a big house with two adorable children: Eli (Skylar Gaertner) and Janey (Shayne Coleman), and her handsome, successful real estate hubby Bruce (Josh Charles). But Laney isn’t happy. She sneaks wine, lines of coke and pills—except for her much-needed prescribed lithium. Laney doesn’t even pretend to eat and she’s screwing her friend’s husband Donny (Thomas Sadoski). Yeah, it’s a hot mess.
When we first meet Bruce he seems cocky and overbearing and we can see why she’d want to pour herself a drink. As the story unfolds, though, our sympathy for Laney is tested. She doesn’t have to work, she lives a seemingly charmed life suffering only from the malaise of rich people. Until Salky shows us the cracks.
When Bruce brings home a cute puppy for their kids, she yells, “Fuck you!” and storms out of the room, coming across as a self-entitled brat. She barks at the staff at her children’s school when asked to follow simple parking and security rules. She’s frighteningly inappropriate with her tiny tot daughter who she pleads for reassurance from. “Do you love me? Promise you’ll never leave me.” When her daughter becomes confused, Laney tries to sluff it off with an offhanded, “Oh, c’mon, Janey, I’m only kidding.”
But she is also a loving mom who draws hearts and stars every morning on their lunch bags, and she runs in to comfort Eli when he has bad dreams. It’s impossible not to care and even root for her despite her fatal flaw of annihilating every gift she has been given.
I loved the film and caught up with director Adam Salky to talk about alcohol, drugs, and Sarah Silverman.
Dorri Olds: Did you ever struggle with alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, sex?
Adam Salky: I’ve got to think about how I want to answer this. I’m not an addict. Like everyone, I’ve had some experiences with those things but what drew me to the story were people in my life who are very, very close to me and struggle with addiction and that illness.
Do you mean they’re also bipolar like Sarah Silverman’s character, Laney?
The film was based on a novel written by Amy Koppelman. Amy and [her] screenplay cowriter Paige Dylan and I talked a lot about Laney’s condition. We never specifically wanted to name it because struggles like hers are not cut and dry. Mental illness and addiction are so often intertwined. We were striving to create a portrait with true-to-life subtleties.
Are you making a distinction between the traumatic experiences Laney had with a father who abandoned her versus a chemical imbalance?
We definitely felt that the addiction stuff in the movie is coming from a deeper psychological drive. Laney was also struggling with some kind of mood disorder. In the book it is explored very thoroughly but the actual diagnosis is never named.
When you worked with Silverman was she open about her own history with depression?
Yes. One of the things that let me know Sarah could do this role was her book. It’s an autobiography called, The Bedwetter, where she’s very open about her struggles with depression and psychopharmacology from a very young age.
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