Several years ago, when his son Nick was assigned to read the young adult novel Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen, acclaimed writer, director, actor, and producer Rob Reiner decided to read the coming-of-age story of young love with his son. What Reiner didn’t know was that the story about the optimistic young dreamer Juli Baker and her less-than-mutually-enamored crush Bryce Loski would be the inspiration for his newest film, also called Flipped, which he wrote, directed, and produced and which hits theaters this August.
“As I was reading it, I thought, ‘This is a beautiful piece of writing. It’s a great story, true to life, funny, intelligent and really touching,’” Reiner recalls. But the clincher that sent Reiner looking to acquire the book’s rights almost as soon as he and his son turned the last page of the book was that the story was one Reiner personally related to and felt like many others would also. “It spoke to me because it made me think about the feeling that I had as a kid growing up and what I felt like when I first fell in love,” says Reiner. In fact, Reiner even decided to relocate the story from the 1980s to the early 1960s to draw on the sense of nostalgia he felt while reading the story.
“[The kids are] living it and we’re remembering it,” added Penelope Ann Miller, who plays Juli’s mother, while participating in a Los Angeles press conference with her fellow cast members. “Everybody remembers their first crush.”
“What I got from the script was the universality of it,” said John Mahoney, who plays Bryce’s grandfather, of his first encounter with the story. “I think a lot of people are going to think they’re going to do their kids a favor and take them to see it, but they’re going to be shocked at how much they like it themselves,” he continued. “Because it’s not just a kid’s film, it’s got a lot to say about a lot of things that are just as pertinent to adults as to children.”
One aspect of the film that particularly excited as well as challenged the film’s cast is that it revolves around little more than the lives of ordinary, wholesome people yet proves their story to be not only relatable but engaging, entertaining, and worth every second of the ride.
One of the ways the film and novel reveal the dimension and complexity present in the characters and their lives is by switching back and forth between Bryce and Juli’s perspectives of the same events and, with each switch, revealing just how much is often below the surface and not always perceived by others.
“I was intrigued about the fact that even though I knew I was going to see essentially the same things done over, I stayed completely riveted and involved,” said Reiner. “I wanted to know what was going to happen, even though we had just seen what was going to happen, because now we were going to hear [Juli’s] point of view and her take on it, and we were going to get new insights and new information about it.”
Said Mahoney, the challenge for him as well as his fellow actors was: “How do you make just ordinary, white-bread, nice, decent people interesting? Because it’s easy to be evil, to stab people, run people over, kill people,” continued Mahoney. “But to play an ordinary, decent person and make that person somebody you want to watch and listen to what they have to say is a real talent.”
In the case of Mahoney’s own character—who other cast members referred to as the moral ballast of the ensemble—Mahoney’s personal goal was “not to make him some plaster saint, but try to find the humanity in him and make him interesting, not just somebody who has all the answers and has been through it.”
Added Rebecca De Mornay, who plays Bryce’s mother, “It’s a challenge to play the ordinary people and show what’s really going on underneath, the conflicts that are in them and yet the choices that are being made by good families like the Bakers that are hard sometimes.”
However, De Mornay emphasizes that her desire to bring depth to those kinds of characters is about more than just making sure their audience is entertained; it is about actually portraying what she sees as realistic challenges that most people face as they try to be decent people and live good lives.
“I think our society has become enamored with the evil and the bad,” said De Mornay. “But, in fact, it’s a challenge to live an ordinary life. It’s hard to be a good person and to not break the law. It’s hard to not lie and to not raise your children with lies, or cowardice, or being in denial that what you’re giving them is love when it isn’t necessarily.”
“People actually can be good, are good, I believe,” added De Mornay. “And I think the film sort of celebrates that.”
But about more than just following the rules and doing what’s right, the actors emphasized that Flipped is truly about figuring out what is really of value, what is really important, and about being true to those values in who you are and how you live.
Comparing Juli and Bryce’s two very different families and their two very different patriarchs—the angry and quick-to-judge Steven Loski, played by Anthony Edwards, and the sacrificial and encouraging Richard Baker, played by Aidan Quinn—Mahoney summed up his take on the film’s message with a bit of advice not unlike that which his character shares with both Juli and Bryce at a various points in the movie, saying, “If you let your dreams wither on the vine, you’re going to end up like Anthony. If you go after them, even if it means just sitting in your filthy backyard with dirty chickens, at least painting, at least creating, you’re going to end up like Aidan. Whatever you do, don’t throw away your dreams and don’t throw away your ambitions because the results can be devastating.”
“It’s not about 3-D or explosions or SciFi; it brings us back to what we all are living for,” said Miller in closing. “Are we following our dreams? Are we going after love and passion? What’s holding us back? And are we missing out? And can we get that back?”
