The Big Picture

Rebecca Miller’s latest film, She Came to Me, is a romantic dramedy that explores serious issues and features a diverse cast of characters. Miller drew inspiration from the worlds of opera and tugboats, delving into the emotional and artistic possibilities they offer. The film combines screwball-style comedy with interconnected storylines, creating a satisfying and emotionally open experience for audiences.

Rebecca Miller has been writing and directing films for nearly three decades. From drama films like Angela and Personal Velocity, which both won several awards at Sundance, to romantic dramedies like The Private Lives of Pippa Lee and Maggie’s Plan to even a documentary about her playwright father, Arthur Miller, Miller has worked in an array of genres.

This range of experience comes in handy with her latest film, She Came to Me, which is another romantic dramedy that covers some serious issues and features an eclectic mix of characters. At the center of it all is Steven (Peter Dinklage), a creatively blocked composer who finds inspiration in a rough-around-the-edges yet hopelessly romantic tugboat captain, Katrina (Marisa Tomei). All the while, his wife, Patricia (Anne Hathaway), is struggling with her own frustrations and epiphanies in her work as a therapist. Her new housekeeper’s (Joanna Kulig) teenage daughter (Harlow Jane) is also falling for a slightly older boy — who happens to be Patricia’s son (Evan Ellison). Questions of class, art, religion, and more clash in a fascinating way, weaving an intriguing tale that culminates in a highly satisfying finale.

I got the chance to talk to Miller about researching the worlds of opera and tugboats, why she misses the screwball style of comedy, how her dad’s favorite joke inspired one of the film’s most memorable scenes, and more.

COLLIDER: I really love films that dive into very specific worlds that we don’t often get to see, and this has several of them, including opera and tugboats. I’m curious why you specifically picked those to delve into.

REBECCA MILLER: I had written a short story about a man who’s blocked as a novelist, and he meets a woman in a bar who kind of unblocks him through their encounter — that’s a very basic way of putting it. It’s a slightly comic short story, which is in my collection total right now. And it lingered with me, and I was like, “There’s something about this that I’m not done with. There’s something more.” But then I thought, “Oh, who wants to watch another novelist type away? Not me.” So I thought, “Well, wait.” I had been going to the opera with one of my kids, who is a musician. I was really getting more and more into opera and watching opera — old opera, new opera — sort of thinking about how free it is, how emotional it is, how much you can do with it, how elastic it is as an art. And so I thought, “Well, that’s a really interesting thing. What would it be like to dive into the world of contemporary opera?”

I knew we had to have a boat in the story because I had already put the teenagers in, and I knew we had to get them to another state and not down the Hudson River. I knew it couldn’t be on the road. So I thought, “Well, what if her father’s a tugboat captain?” And I thought, “Well, wait — what if she’s a tugboat captain?” David, my producing partner, and I were batting these ideas back and forth, and then we looked it up, and there was a woman tugboat captain that we found in Canada. They’re very rare. And now I thought, “Okay, great. So there is such a thing.” And then I started researching tugboats. It’s kind of wonderful. I just found a picture of myself a friend of mine sent me that was from 2016 on a tugboat, and it’s just like this long marination process.

Kind of on the same note, I love that Patricia goes all-in on Catholicism, as someone who grew up going to Catholic school. I researched and read that you practiced Catholicism as a child. Can you talk a little bit about the decision to integrate that into the script and have that be where that character finds her meaning and purpose?

Yeah, I am still very drawn to Catholicism and practice, and I was interested in how countercultural it is. I was interested in being, in a kind of subtle way, quite countercultural and looking at our culture and thinking, “Okay, so everybody just assumes that you’re gonna throw away your first love because you’re a teenager and it’s not for real.” Everybody assumes that a woman who’s a therapist who’s in a secular world, a secular job — a very professional woman — isn’t necessarily having these kinds of massive mystical notions and feelings. And I thought, “Well, what happens when somebody’s interior and exterior do not match?” It pulls apart, it pulls apart, it pulls apart, and finally, something cracks. I was really interested in that.

I really love the opera’s sound and the set design — they’re so specific and effective. How did you go about developing obviously the sound but also the look of the opera?

Bryce Dessner and I worked very carefully together. He had to, of course, write the two. There are two opera scenes — the final scenes of two original operas in the movie. So he had to write those. I had written the libretto and the words and what happens, and he took that and — without having to really change any words, which I couldn’t believe — found these two sounds.

The first one, he turned into a very complex sound — a very powerful, full orchestra. And very much in the way that he writes as a classical composer — very close to that.

And then the second one had to be written by a man in love and had to be much more lyrical and almost function more like a song and very emotional. And that’s also territory he understands really well being in the National, but they had to be written by the same man. Sometimes people are like, “Oh, it has to be exactly the same style.” But the truth is that artists work in different styles all the time. I mean, I’ve worked in different genres. He certainly works in different genres. You just put on a different hat and go for a different tone.

And then the looks of the operas, for the first opera, I always saw it as very red, white, and black — very expressionistic, harsh colors. Whereas, for the second opera, I wanted it to be very atmospheric, blues, sort of sea colors and planets because it’s all in outer space. So you needed a sense of space — of being at the edge of space. We looked at all sorts of things: David Hockney sets, The Little Prince illustrations, the Hubble telescope, everything. Kim Jennings, who’s the production designer I work with, was so instrumental in finding this kind of wonderful thing. I also always wanted four organs on the stage for the second opera because he’s very inspired by the world around him all the time, and one of the things that there is in Katrina’s tugboat is her aunt’s organ. And so I thought, “Well, he’s gonna be inspired by the organ.” And so there are four organs on the stage to keep going with that idea that he’s always using his life and how we all use our lives. I mean, you can’t make art without doing that in some way — even if you’re writing science fiction, you are gonna be using your life on some level, or your interior life.

Image via Vertical

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You mentioned a little bit about being able to work in different genres. I really like the style of comedy that’s in this movie — it’s a bit screwball, and it has all the interconnected stories that build to that big event at the end, which I always think is a lot of fun. Why do you think that style of humor and structure speak to you?

I think my personality is kind of a little bit screwball in a certain way. The way I am in the world is a little bit like that anyway. There’s just something about the way my humor is or the way I am. Of course, I can also be quite serious, but I am a nerd for sure. I really respond to it. I think it’s a difficult genre or type of film to pull off these days, maybe because it’s hard to find enough innocence in a story to create that without loads of irony. And this film does kind of — although it’s not like a silly film and there’s some serious stuff in it — really wears its heart on its sleeve, and it allows itself to be quite emotional and quite open about that.

I love humor combined with wit. Obviously, Woody Allen did that a lot, and we have this great tradition of earlier films that do it as well, but it feels like there’s a bit of a drought. That’s not happening so much anymore, and I really miss it, personally. I want to go see movies like this.

I think one of the most elevated and memorable scenes in this is Anne Hathaway’s Kraploch scene because it’s so strange and specific and wonderful. Can you talk a little bit about writing that?

It’s weird because it’s a story — a joke, really — that my father used to tell all the time. It’s an old Jewish joke about the ironies of psychiatry — the idea that you figure out what’s bothering you, and you still have the problem. I don’t want to give away too much of what happens in the scene, but I thought it would be perfect for a psychiatrist to be telling it at the moment of her true crisis. It just, as I said, it came to me. [Laughs] I was so delighted as I began to write it. I often talk about story math. I’m really bad at real math, but story math is this plus this, and you’re like, “Oh my God — it equals this.” You’re always trying to chip away at stuff from different angles.

Something I really noticed in this movie is that you plant so many seeds that foreshadow and pay off later. I think that’s especially true with Brian d’Arcy James’ character with his job that eventually comes into play. I’m curious how you decide which breadcrumbs to leave so there are still surprises but it’s satisfying when something comes back like that.

I guess it’s like a puzzle movie. Or a kind of mystery of character, I suppose. Who is everybody? You think they’re one thing, and then, oh, wait a minute — no, they’re that. Oh, wait a minute — no, they’re that. You keep opening the doors. I often put things in, and then, if they don’t work out later, then I’ll take it out. I’ll have something in the initial stages, and then I’ll see — can I make it land?

I always feel like there’s good confusion and bad confusion in film, and good confusion is where shortly, you’re gonna be like rewarded, and you’ll get it in a way that you’re like, “Oh, yeah — that had to be so” or “I totally understand why that was.” Bad confusion is you don’t know what the hell’s going on and you never find out.

Image via Berlinale

There are so many distinctive characters in this with so many fun quirks — they all feel just so fully realized. I’m curious if there was one that was sort of like your way in or one that you feel like you related to most.

Steven was definitely the one that led me into the story. He was the guide. In some ways, I think I identify with Steven, but not in others. The struggle to make anything, the struggle to find ideas, the struggle to have anything worthwhile to say, the fear that you don’t and you won’t ever again, the fear that no one will connect, the fear that people connected but not enough, the feeling that you want — all those things are very recognizable to me, but he takes it further and is a more neurotic version. And he also can’t decide things, which is not true of me. I can decide things, thank god.

In some ways, I feel that I gave a bit of myself to all of them. So the answer is everybody and nobody, in a sense. I sometimes feel like when I’m making fun of people in particular, I also target myself. I think it’s only fair that if you’re gonna satirize anybody, you should also be in there.

I know that watching you direct Maggie’s Plan sort of inspired Greta Gerwig to start directing, which is amazing. You two are both really paving the way for all kinds of directors, but I feel like especially female directors because unfortunately there is still a very big imbalance. I’m curious what your advice to aspiring directors, especially female directors, would be right now.

My advice always, for everyone, is to just try to stay true to who you are. Everybody has an original self. You’re gonna get a lot of advice about how to make it more like something else, and you have to learn how to say yes to some things and no to other things — understand what really rings true to you. Absolutely, take those notes. I’m not saying don’t take notes. But don’t take notes that are like, “Oh, well, on page 20, you should be at this stage, and on page 35, this should be happening.” Those are people who are trying to turn your movie into something else. Listen, it’s true — the struggle is not over yet. Even the women who do get the chance don’t tend to get as much money. But the good news is, we’re chipping away at it, and we’ll all do it together, and it will change.

She Came to Me is now playing in theaters everywhere.