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Posted September 01, 2010 to photo album "Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden"
An introduction to the fast-rising writer-director partnership behind the latest comedy from Focus Features, It’s Kind of a Funny Story.
Back to Brooklyn
For their third feature, Boden and Fleck have returned to their hometown borough of Brooklyn for It’s Kind of a Funny Story. It’s their first film based on another’s material — Ned Vizzini’s young adult novel about a depressed teenager who finds himself within a mental hospital. For producer Kevin Misher, Boden and Fleck were the perfect choice to write and direct. He said, “What this team did in [their earlier features] Half Nelson and Sugar was to take a world that a general audience may not be privy to, and give it a verisimilitude.” Comments Vizzini, “Right from the get-go it was clear that Ryan and Anna understood the book. They considered things in the story that I hadn’t. The script became this beast that they built, and I was so pleased with the results.” With this third feature, the filmmakers are discovering for themselves patterns in their moviemaking. Says Boden, “I think that we’re interested in people who have an opportunity to reinvent themselves. Teenagers have to reinvent themselves, because that’s what you do when you grow older, but even the characters in our movies who aren’t teenagers are going through a transformation.” Adds Fleck, “Anna and I were drawn in by this kid who is earnest and wants to get better and – so importantly – is open to the world around him…. We tried to make a movie that we would have wanted to see as 15-16-year-olds.”
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