[Editor’s note: This interview was conducted during the 2011 edition of SXSW. The pic receives its New York City premiere tonite @ the rerun.]
Alison Bagnall’s The Dish & the Spoon, Rose (Greta Gerwig) and The Boy (Olly Alexander), both desperate for love and companionship, amble through a relationship they are scared to define for fear they may burst the balloon of their imagined world. In empty summer homes, abandoned lighthouses, in period costumes and in drag, the two play out their fantasies: though soon their actions become fraught with real feelings.
After its world premiere screening at this year’s SXSW, I had the opportunity to sit down with writer/director Alison Bagnall and star Olly Alexander. ‘You’re in this beautiful spot by the ocean but nobody’s there,’ Bagnall said of the film’s seaside landscape in coastal Delaware. The beach, the highways, the streets all feel empty save Rose and The Boy, as if everyone else is incidental. In the interview Bagnall describes her gut-first directing style, and Olly plays the piano!
