Neil Hunter on 'Sparkle'

Neil Hunter, the co-director of ’Lawless Heart‘ spills the beans on how he accidentally made a rom-com with his new film, ’Sparkle‘

When my co-director Tom Hunsinger and I finished our last film, ‘Lawless Heart’, we had to wonder how they’d persuade people to watch it. Low-budget British films that don’t involve severed heads are tough propositions. But the distributors had a ready answer: ‘It’s an art-house film, and that’s how we’re selling it.’ And it actually worked.

We developed our new film, ‘Sparkle’, just as we did ‘Lawless Heart’, by improvising with a group of actors, touching on themes such as absent fathers, trans-generational relationships, ambition, the purpose of life – the usual. For two years or so, we refined our characters and tried to shape the most compelling and moving narrative from the material in front of us… and then it dawned on us that we had written a romantic comedy. There was a boy, a girl, true love, jeopardy and even the hope of a happy ending.

Naturally, we went into denial. We told ourselves we were writing a comedy about modern love. Or a drama. With funny bits. But, as all addicts know, denial can only get you so far, and the rom-com template hung over us like a planet to its moon, exerting an almost irresistible magnetic pull.

You can, of course, rebel. For example, romantic comedies tend to focus on the two central characters. We tend to get fascinated by the subsidiary roles as well. So, as well as our young lovers (played by Shaun Evans and Amanda Ryan), we give plenty of time to the relationship between the characters played by Lesley Manville and Bob Hoskins.

So you can rebel, but you can’t help feeling like a sulky teen locking himself in his bedroom. There is, for example, a scene where the young lovers play crazy golf on an abandoned track. We had to decide how they would improvise clubs and balls. The art department scoured seaside shops, and offered all manner of amusingly over-sized, inflatable artefacts – the very things you would expect to find in a proper rom-com. We sternly opted for the simple and the down-at-heel – sticks and fruit (which some will still find cute). And, indeed, as I write, I find I’m staring at a fluffy dolphin, which plays a key part in our climax… and I love it. The sulky teen came down for dinner. You can run but you can’t hide. The material exerts its own pressure, and you can’t ignore it.

Half way through the edit, we arrived at a version of the film that was taut and dramatic – but wasn’t yet as emotional as we were hoping. The solution was a bit of an education. It turned out we had taken out too much comedy, too much air. With more comedy back in, the film was much more moving. The comedy and the emotion turned out to be intrinsically linked, as it should be.

As for the music – often collared as the most manipulative element of a film’s post-production process – our composer Adrian Johnson simply informed us that we had made a film about broken people, and he was therefore going to write broken music. There is little you can do in such circumstance except nod, and try to look as if you know what he’s talking about.

Such nuances are thrown to the wind when it comes to the final sell. An early version of the poster, for example, suggesting an ensemble comedy-drama, was replaced by an image dominated by the young lovers. But don’t blame the marketers. Almost all the early responses by journalists took it for granted that ‘Sparkle’ was a romantic comedy, and treated it in that light. The urge to categorise appears to be deeply ingrained. Complexity is flattened with every retelling. I remember innocently going to watch a film at the Curzon Soho, when they played a trailer for ‘Lawless Heart’. An American voice-over began (it was an American trailer) and I sunk in my seats and looked for the exit. Which is when you tell yourself: the only thing that really matters is the film.

‘Sparkle’ opens on Friday.