In Sean Price Williams’ directorial debut The Sweet East, Lillian (Talia Ryder) snaps to Ian (Jacob Elordi), “I believe that you’re more enamored in basking in your supposed infamy than winning a convert to your cause, which to my understanding has to do with creating a better cause.” A few scenes later, a group of white nationalists storm a film shoot in one of the many displays of electrifying absurdity that composes The Sweet East’s genre-defying send-up of modern-day social stratification and neuroses.
Broadly-speaking, The Sweet East is a Northeastern picaresque that employs film critic Nick Pinkerton’s cutting wit to tell the story of Lillian, a high schooler on a class trip to D.C. who absconds when a gun-wielding conspiracist starts firing rounds into the ceiling of Comet Ping Pong, the locus of the 2016 Pizzagate conspiracy. What follows is a down-and-outwardly spiraling series of vignettes that takes Lillian through America’s concentric communities (or cults), pushing her, in the pace of her centripetal acceleration, toward the fringes of the country’s crumbling constitution. Among those she encounters are Caleb (Earl Cave), a pseudo-punk “artivist” with a trust fund and questionable mixed-media abilities; Lawrence (Simon Rex), a white-Nationalist professor with the romantic sensibilities of Humbert Humbert and the literary sensibilities of a goth undergrad; Molly (Ayo Edibri) and Matthew (Jeremy O. Harris), navel-gazing filmmakers; and Mo, a hyper-masculine pseudo-militant that likes to pray until sundown and dance to EDM in the woods. With The Sweet East, Sean Price Williams and Nick Pinkerton offer something that breathes new life into indie filmmaking, by refusing to cater to the need for inherent meaning or tidy categorization that pervades art today. Fortunately, we had the opportunity to speak with Sean and Nick, alongside actors Talia Ryder, Simon Rex, and Earl Cave, ahead of the film’s theatrical release.
Conor Truax: I had the privilege of seeing the movie a few days ago and really enjoyed it. Nick, you fittingly played a film critic in Al Warren’s Dogleg earlier this year. One of my favorite lines in that movie is near the end when Al’s character asks you if his movie has a pervading thought or idea. And you’re like, “no, there’s no pervading thought.” I’m curious what your pervading thoughts were as you all went about making the film?[ppp_patron_only level=”3″ silent=”no”]
Nick Pinkerton: In certain reviews of the film and the way it’s been talked about in some circles, people are like, “what’s it trying to say?”Or, “it’s confused about what it’s trying to say.” Anytime I see this, I’m like, if I wanted to say something, I would open my mouth and say it.
You don’t make a movie to express a simple idea. I hope that the movie is expressing several ideas in any given shot. And that, more than anything else, our impulse wasn’t to give a sermon, but to explore many facets of the contemporary world.
You need to give somebody watching the movie room to draw their own conclusions and make their own decisions. A lot of people are browbeating Talia’s character and impressing their own worldviews upon her. And if there’s any single idea to come away from it with, it’s that people who impose their worldviews on you extremely bluntly don’t often have your best interests at heart.
Sean Price Williams: We get upset with the gossip. We thought we made a movie that had some relevance, hopefully, and that’s about it. We’re not telling you what to think, we’re telling you that you never know.
NP: As a critic, the films that I respond to are the films that give me space to reflect on my own life, the world I live in, the way I live in the world. I think that’s a cool, democratic way of making art rather than coming from some elevated position where you’re lecturing to a viewer, reader, etc.
SPW: We love Spielberg, he’s a big hero and a master. But his movies don’t let you think. Serge Daney said something like, “these are not movies for a free person.” You don’t get any time to think about anything. You’re completely manipulated.
CT: And avoiding that gives movies space to grow independent of their creators with time. To your point about relevance, Sean, the film is very much a survey of Northeastern culture, and all the concentric cults or communities there. With a lot of characters in the movie, I felt a certain level of recognition in different ways. I was curious whether there were any characters in the film that felt very familiar to people you’ve encountered, or resonant to you all.
SPW: Yeah, I think all the characters are familiar. I mean, maybe not entirely. I had a guy like Simon’s character Lawrence, who at one point in my life was the most cultured, intelligent person I ever met. He would bring me to New York from Delaware and take me to the opera and things like that. Then Earl’s character was based on a guy that taught me so much when I was 17, 18 — this punk that got me into all the coolest music. Rish’s character is not someone I’m familiar with, but in fact I feel like he’s the character I feel closest to myself. Then, you know, the crew is all friends. So yeah, it was familiar. That’s what made it so easy to make.
Simon Rex: I took from a few people who are the ones who are the most outspoken, on their soapbox, sanctimoniously preaching their belief system without listening at all and just talking, talking, talking, which I think is what’s going on right now in the country.
A lot of people are just talking and not listening and just yelling. So I just took from several of those and made it my version of that because I think we all know that archetype of that person who’s just talking a lot. And maybe they’re right about some of the facts, but they’re just spewing out statistics and facts and it’s exhausting.
SPW: And that’s the problem, and that’s what annoys me in general. Everyone knows the right way, and everyone is right. Even with this current conflict, all of a sudden everyone is so passionate. But where have you been? Where did this passion come from for this thing? I wish everyone didn’t have to be right. Because when you’re right, you don’t learn anything.
SR: You’re not open to being wrong or listening.
SPW: You’re never going to learn.
CT: To the point about everyone being right, one thing that I found interesting was how the characters all have an idealistic or almost romantic sensibility to them in terms of their beliefs, even if it’s totally extreme. Do you think the U.S. is a romantic place, and more specifically, what is unique about American romance?
NP: I think one of the pervading ideas in the movie was this utopian tendency. Because America is quite unusual in that it is based on an idea.
Meaning, it is essentially an idealistic country. It’s not a bunch of people who happen to speak the same language, who live in the same region. It is trying to build something out of thin air. A castle on a hill. And I think that’s still very much pervasive in the country today, this utopian thinking.
What’s disturbing about that is that a lot of people’s utopias involve not having people who don’t share that vision of utopia around.
SPW: I think it’s a super romantic place for this reason.The passionate and fiery people that we have. Of course, there’s going to be conflicts because of that. But in general, I think it’s such a healthy approach, conceptually.
I get so proud of America when I watch How To With John Wilson because when I see all the crazy people that he finds, I’m like, this is the only place on earth and the only time on earth when these people exist.
CT: The film also mentions multiple conspiracies, which are a very American thing. There’s a quote I really like by Walter Kirn about QAnon that says “people on the internet don’t want to read, they want to write.” I’m wondering what you guys think about conspiracies as a creative medium.
SPW: It’s the imagination of American people without jobs on the Internet. I love conspiracies when they’re great, but I don’t think we should be living by them or anything like that. Whether or not we went to the moon or not for real, what difference does it make to any of our lives?
Stories can be really great. Pizzagate is what jumpstarts our movie. It’s just such an outrageous idea that these people concocted on the internet with details from John Podesta’s living room. The imagination that it takes for that is amazing. And I think if that’s an American thing, that’s something to be kind of proud of.
NP: Well, I think it’s ticked up considerably in the last 20 years.
SR: Americans have magical thinking a lot. I live in California where there’s a lot of magical thinking. But I think it’s a byproduct of the freedom Americans have over here. Hundreds of years later and people just can believe whatever crazy shit they want. And, you know, it does make it what is amazing about America. But also scary. Like, is it going to be greed that takes human beings out? Or is it going to be our beliefs that take us out?
This movie seems so relevant to what’s happening in the world right now. The belief systems, and how passionate people are about them. And it’s like what I said earlier, people are just talking and not listening. That’s what you just said about the QAnon. They’re writing and not reading, you know. It’s the same thing.
NP: An interesting byproduct of the Internet age is that you can adopt any completely whack-a-doodle belief system and, if you want to, find a community that will reinforce it. If you want to find scholarly papers that will tell you the Holocaust didn’t happen, you can find that stuff at a click of a button and you can then enmesh yourself in this very curated worldview and immediately have people who will back you up.
CT: One thing that I noticed in the film or that resonated as well was the fact that Lawrence and Mo and a bunch of other characters confront Lillian for being sarcastic or ironic. In the ‘90s, a bunch of authors complained about irony and pushed for a new sincerity. Now, especially with the Internet, everything is hyper-ironic, particularly on social media. Talia and Earl, you guys grew up on the Internet. Sean, Simon, Nick, you guys grew alongside the Internet. I’m just curious how you think about irony as a rhetorical device, particularly because there is irony in the movie. But there is also sincerity and beauty.
SPW: We’re children of the ‘90s where that was that way. And I hated it. I hated it then. I just don’t jive with irony and sarcasm. I don’t like sarcastic jokes. But it is a thing again.
Earl Cave: It’s just armor. It’s an easy form of a shield.
Talia Ryder: I find irony and sarcasm very funny though. But I definitely think it’s a form of armor. Especially if you’re not using it for comedic purposes. A little irony sprinkled here and there never hurts anyone.
NP: It’s a confusion that pops up all the time now with movies. The fact that the character has a tendency not to take things seriously and to keep a certain ironic distance is the character. I don’t think that’s the position of the film itself. I don’t think it’s an ironic or cynical film at all.
CT: Nick, you brought up people responding to the movie and projecting their own beliefs onto Lillian. Throughout the film, Lillian finds herself in vulnerable situations with older men on multiple occasions. But she’s able to navigate their desire to her advantage. Do you consider Lillian empowered? And how do you think about her being in control versus not being in control?
EC: I guess the idea that they don’t know that she is in control makes it more powerful. It makes her able to manipulate the characters more. My character, Caleb, is more naïve, and she can easily manipulate him because he doesn’t really know that she’s being manipulative.
SR: In the original script, it was insinuated that my character has sex with Lillian, or could have? We changed it to where it saves her and makes her a little bit more redeemable as a person. And it strengthens my character’s moral compass. The fact that he fights every urge as a man and doesn’t do anything because of his values or his beliefs is interesting to watch. He’s fighting every fiber of his biological being because he doesn’t believe that it’s appropriate and he would think less of her even though he wants to.
NP: He’s just not comfortable with his body. He’s not a comfortable physical being. At one point, you told me you played him prematurely ejaculating.
SR: I forgot about that.
SPW: That scene is interesting because I just want to know what Lillian actually wants. I don’t know. I get Lawrence’s psychology. But then at the end, I’m like what was she actually doing there?
TR: I think the only time in the film that Lillian doesn’t feel in control, or like she has any power, is when she decides to leave the school. At the beginning, I think she feels powerless and invisible in the setting [of the school trip]. I also think at the end with Mo, she starts to feel trapped. But I think those are the only two times where she feels like she’s not the one in power. And in both situations, she flips the script to be back in the position of power again. But I think, at least with Simon and those characters, she uses her seeming vulnerability and innocence to her advantage in a cool way. I like that the audience, and Sean, have no idea what she wants or what she’s trying to do at any given moment.
SR: I think the most powerful thing in the world is a beautiful woman. And you see what happens in this movie. In real life, that happens. A beautiful woman will just come in and make wars. I just watched that movie, Napoleon, [and] the whole movie is about him being pussy-whipped for this younger girl. He comes back from winning a battle, and he’s just like, “where is she?” The most powerful thing in the world is a young, beautiful woman.
NP: It’s true. Even when I was in high school, it always fascinated me to see how the dynamic would shift. I could be hanging out with my idiot buddies, saying the dumbest shit imaginable, then a girl comes in, and everybody changes.
SPW: The way your friend might talk to a girl on the phone.
SR: You hear that little change in the pitch.
SPW: Those are brutal moments. And now women know that. I don’t think they always knew that. But now they know.[/ppp_patron_only]
Comments are closed.