Movies

Deb Shoval on writing and directing “AWOL”

After gushing about AWOL in a recent review, I was thrilled to speak with the movie’s out writer-director, Deb Shoval, ahead of her appearance at Frameline for the movie’s screening in San Francisco.

Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images for the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival

AWOL sees recent high school grad Joey (Lola Kirke) falling in love with the lively but married Rayna (Breeda Wool) in rural Pennsylvania. I asked Deb about the importance of small town Pennsylvania to this story, what these characters’ motivations were, what’s next for her and more.

Warning: Spoilers ahead

AfterEllen.com: This film started off as a very well-received short. Can you tell me about the journey from short to feature?

Deb Shoval: We made AWOL the short film in January 2010 in a very, very snowy couple of days in northeast Pennsylvania, which is where I grew up. It was really just a small little project. At that time, it was not intended to be like a calling card for a feature film. It was just its own little story. And then that short film got into Sundance. So I started sort of playing with what it would be like to really expand it. Because the short film really feels to me like act two and act three of a feature kind of condensed. But it was missing all of the act one. How did Rayna and Joey fall in love? What was happening in Joey’s life before that? Why does Joey join the army? It sort of didn’t answer any of those beginning of the story questions. So Karolina Waclawiak and I got together and wrote a script for the feature, which was also a great opportunity to really expand on the characters. So the mother became much more of a three-dimensional character. I kind of played with Joey’s stepfather, which became actually her brother-in-law and became a real character and someone she’s very close with. And so that was the beginning of it, was just writing a longer script that I felt answered a lot more questions.

AE: You not only chose to tell a small town love story, but you paid special attention to getting the details right. You now telling me you’re from that part of the U.S. makes a lot of sense. But as you probably know, we don’t often see small towns at the center of queer cinema. When we do, they’re not usually as important to the overall feel of the movie as is the case with yours. As a storyteller, why was small town America so vital to your vision for the film?

DS: I’m from that area, as I said, and it’s an old coal area. The coal industry actually has not been around for decades, but it’s very much still what the identity of the area is. I think post-industrial America, in general, is very interesting because we have so many things happening in this country at the same time. There are places like San Francisco, where there’s so much prosperity, and then there are these post-industrial parts of the Northeast where people have really been struggling for generations at this point, without any new industry. So Joey’s very much from this working class family and Rayna is really from nearby but this more rural, Appalachian poverty. Those kinds of nuances were interesting to me to share because it’s where I’m from. I wanted the landscape and the place to really be a character of its own, which I think comes through. From what I’m hearing from audiences, it really does come through.

Deb and Breeda Wool at Sundance in 2011via Getty

AE: Joey is so young and does have some options ahead of her in terms of an education and a career, yet she wants to take care of this woman and her kids. What’s that come down to for her?

DS: I think through and through Joey is a good girl. She wants her mother to be happy. She wants to please everyone. And when she falls for Rayna, Rayna becomes the person that she’s trying to please. It’s very much, I think, about first love and the way we’ll sort of do anything for the person we’re in love with. And also I think it’s about how do we make decisions. In a broader sense, it’s about what are the choices that young people in this country have and don’t have and what decisions do they make as a result. But definitely, Joey is very much affected not only by her class background and the opportunities she has as a result, but also by just being madly in love.

AE: Moving on to Rayna, although she essentially tells Joey to quit her, she also pulls her back in. And even when she does eventually convince her to join the army, it comes off a bit self-serving because it’s implied that Joey will come back and take care of her. What’s with all the push and pull and eventual manipulation?

DS: I think that Rayna deep down is very motivated by fear. I think that, as she says in the film, she’s only left Pennsylvania once, ever. Even where Joey lives, which is more in the city of Wilkes-Barre, Rayna considers like “the city” in a big kind of way that she does not visit often. And so even though on the surface she’s so flirty and vivacious and has such a joie de vie, really the thought that she deserves a better life has been like beaten out of her. I think any kind of change is very scary to her. I think in general people do the best they can all the time, and so I don’t think that Rayna’s manipulative. I just think the push and pull comes from the fact that she herself is torn and thinks she deserves something better, but only allows herself to think that every once in a while.

AE: I want to talk next about Rayna’s sexuality. Her sexuality poses some questions. We know she’s been with other women besides Joey, but we also know she’s been with men and is, of course, married to one. But the way she talks about men seems to suggest she thinks of them as a way out of a bad situation. If you were to label her, and you might not want to, where on the sexuality spectrum do you think she lies?

DS: Breeda Wool, the actress who plays the character Rayna, and I definitely talked about that question. I think that Rayna is someone who has always been the prettiest girl in her small town and has always used her looks to get what she needs—her looks and her sexuality. And so I think maybe in a completely free world where she felt that she could be whatever she wanted, she might identify as a lesbian. Maybe she’d identify as bisexual. But I think she just hasn’t even had the luxury to consider those identities, much less “queer” potentially. Which is why I think the little glimpse of utopia that we see when she and Joey do make it to Vermont is so exciting for her. We see that sort of bliss and sense of freedom and how much more out Rayna and Joey are even just in that one little night.

AE: Speaking of the queer label, Joey also meets another queer girl in the film, but between her stuck up friends and affluent life, she kind of spooks Joey. What were you trying to say with those scenes and that character? For me, it seemed to solidify that Joey’s attraction to Rayna isn’t about her being the only other queer woman in town she knows. If anything, she likes her more because of that sense of home.

DS: I was very interested in portraying the many layers of socioeconomic realities that exist in this small town. As we see, I think in some of the conversations between Joey and her mom, it’s not just the fact that Rayna is a woman that concerns her, but just the fact that as her sister says, “She’s trash, Joey.” I think that when Joey meets Haley and her college friends there’s this exposure to a whole other potential more sort of intellectually rigorous life. Which is somewhat exciting and also makes Joey feel very objectified and ultimately, I think, does help her to know that Rayna is really the only woman for her. Right now at least. I think also joining the army is very empowering for Joey and that she comes home having a stronger sense of her sexuality and more comfortable in who she is.

AE: So despite Joey’s later misgivings and Rayna’s push and pull ways, is it your belief that these two are absolutely in love with each other?

DS: I definitely think that Joey is in love with Rayna, for sure, in that kind of blind, first love, head over heels, nothing else matters kind of way. And I think that Rayna tries really hard not to be in love with Joey. I think she really fights it and that’s why she says at the beginning, “You know this is just between us,” and “You know I’m never leaving,” and all that kind of stuff. It’s very much to caution Joey but also sort of to remind herself of the barriers that exist to this actually being possible for her. But I think despite herself she very much falls for Joey.

AE: Did Rayna really have intentions of leaving, of building a life with Joey and with the children?

DS: In my opinion, yes. I do think that Rayna really allows herself, especially when her grandmother dies, to be open to the possibility of really leaving this town and this marriage and the expectations of her and starting a new life. But I think that she’s so afraid of the unknown that it’s like this idea of Vermont became this other thing that she allowed herself to daydream about. And it becomes the new comfortable. I think when Vermont is also not a possibility, it’s just too genuinely scary for her to face the unknown and she does what she needs to do to go back to what’s familiar.

AE: Is there a part of her that is looking out for Joey when she makes that decision? Or is it just about her and the girls?

DS: I think that Rayna is so in her own panic at that time that she’s really just thinking about how to save herself. I don’t know how much she’s thinking about what would be the kind thing to do for Joey. But ultimately, I think that what she does ends up, in the long run, being the kindest thing for Joey. I do think that Joey will move on to a really wonderful life and look back on this sort of with a smile at this woman who she fell so hard for and got so heartbroken over but also who helped her understand her sexuality and, frankly, helped her get out of a town that she’s probably best for getting out of. But I don’t know how intentional it is that Rayna helped her on that journey.

AE: So what’s next for you? Are there any plans to incorporate more queer characters or themes into your work?

DS: I love directing actors. I love a strong sense of place. If the right thing for the story is that the character be gay, then that’s what they’ll be. But I don’t feel like that’s what’s motivating me-like to tell queer stories necessarily. I’m just interested in telling meaningful stories in which characters have to make hard, complicated decisions. I have a bunch of different projects in development and some of them are queer and some of them are not. It’s up to the powers that be in terms of money and stuff and which one of those will be made next.

AWOL plays at Frameline in San Francisco on June 22 and 25 and at Outfest in Los Angeles on July 9. Visit the movie’s Facebook page to keep up with future screening news.

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