Focus Features

Pam Grady's San Francisco Chronicle article "BEING FLYNN: Mythic father figure drives director" spotlights writer/director Paul Weitz. Famous for such films as About a Boy and In Good Company, Weitz related to Nick Flynn's memoir about dealing with his father, partially because of his own father, John Weitz. A famous fashion designer, John Weitz became a celebrity whose name could be seen on New York bus ads through the 70s and 80s. In dealing with this story about a father and son, Paul Weitz thought, "There were a couple of central things which drew to me to the material in the first place and then became apparent as I worked more on it," he says. "The first thing was this question of whether you are fated to become your parent and whether you can create yourself, and if you're troubled, is it actually fatal to detach yourself from the troubling aspect of your heritage?"