Rodrigo García—the award-winning filmmaker behind Nine Lives, Mother and Child, and Albert Nobbs—has long been admired for his exploration of the inner lives of complicated women. But in his latest film, García wanted to explore the complexities of relationships between fathers and sons—even if, he insists, many of the problems plaguing his protagonists are universal.
“I used to do more [films] with women, because I wrote them better than the guys,” García told Observer. “Now that I feel that my writing of men has improved, then I’m doing more of the guys and maybe as I get older and look at myself more. But the themes and problems are the same.”
Written and directed by García, Raymond & Ray stars Ewan McGregor and Ethan Hawke as two half-brothers who set out to attend the funeral of their late father, Harris (Tom Bower), with whom they both had an estranged relationship. But upon arrival, they discover that their father’s dying wish was for them to dig his grave by hand, forcing them to spend an afternoon at a cemetery with family members they never knew they had and confront the havoc that he wreaked on their own lives.
In a recent Zoom interview, García reflected on the experience of working with McGregor, Hawke and longtime friend Alfonso Cuáron (who is a producer on the film), the increasingly absurd reveals on the day of Harris’ funeral, and the one scene that left the cast and crew in stitches.
Raymond (McGregor) and Ray (Hawke) have the same name and went through many of the same experiences up until a certain point, which has caused them both to have trouble expressing their true emotions, but they turned out quite differently. How would you say the different ways they were treated by their father ultimately shaped them into the men that we see in this film?
Rodrigo García: I saw Harris—and Ray describes him that way—as a very bitter person. Nothing turned out for him, so I think Harris was frustrated, and there’s a hint that he might have been a frustrated musician. Ray sees that picture of Harris at the piano when he was young, and I think Raymond says Harris had a terrible father and things were done to him, so I think he took it out on those boys. The boys were probably like they are now: They were charming and, in the case of Ray, very talented. And sometimes, like angry parents do, they direct the anger towards the children, so they share that.
For me, the difference is how the men have processed it. Raymond has processed it by trying to control his environment, trying to have a very orderly life. Like he says, “We come from chaos. I don’t want to live like that.” But his desire for order has created chaos in his life. He’s on his way to his third divorce, and [he has] a constant idea that, “We should forgive our father. Forgiveness is good.” But he’s lying to himself. Like you said, he’s not facing his emotions. He’s the angrier of the two, and Ray is cooler and seems to say, “Oh, I’m blasé. I’m above it. The old man was an asshole. Let’s move on from it.” But he hasn’t moved on from it at all. Their experiences were similar, but the way they adapted to their pain is different.
What were some of the biggest contradictions that you wanted to explore about relationships between fathers and sons?
You can’t generalize it, but there is a theory in psychology—I’m not sure if it’s actually psychology or anthropology—that a boy needs his father’s permission to become a man. It seems like a contradiction. There are some cultures or stories that say that a son must kill his father to become a man. I think the father giving a son permission to become a man is a metaphorical killing, meaning “I will make way for you to become the man.” So that idea was a little bit what I explored. I try not to work from themes; I like to work from stories. I want to be sure I’m not caught in, “Oh, here’s my concept and let me dramatize it.” But as the story developed, that’s what interested me. The men are stunted. They were not encouraged by their father to become men. They were always told, “You’re an inadequate boy and an inadequate man.”
This film has an absurdist, dark humor that disarms the audience for some of the deeper and more poignant moments. How did you want to balance the exposition and backstory required to build this world with the lighter moments about life and death?
Any time you’re making a movie where the story doesn’t start when it starts — meaning [that] it’s so dependent on backstory — it’s tricky. When you’re constantly looking at the backstory, you could be in real danger. So at least the backstory here is revealed through surprising reveals; it’s not just the way the father used to be, but them finding out that the way people describe the father now has nothing to do with what they remember, and then trying to find humor in the pain. So when Ray says, “He could be funny when he wanted to be,” and Raymond says, “Well, does whipping our asses with his belt count as funny?” Then you’re revealing backstory, but you’re also revealing the present, which is pain.
But I thought there should be humor because there was so much pain in it. I knew we were headed towards extreme behavior, mostly by the way the men say their final goodbyes, [so] I think [I was] trying to get the pressure cooker to blow up. There has to be some absurd stuff—it can’t just be a journey of total pain. When I was writing the whole sequence of the cemetery at one point, I was worried: “Is this going to be boring?” Because, yes, it’s interesting to say he wanted you to dig the grave, but then you can’t be digging a grave for a half hour. You need other stuff around it — absurd ideas like the circus performers coming in, or the little boy saying, “It’s my turn [to dig],” and then being totally bored and [adding] characters that are eccentric like the funeral director (Todd Louiso) or the pastor (Vondie Curtis-Hall).
You’ve previously worked with Ewan on Last Days in the Desert, and you worked with Ethan when you were a camera operator on Reality Bites and Great Expectations. What did they both bring to the table as actors and collaborators that helped this story come to life?
They’re both very good actors and they have become, in my opinion, even better actors. Ewan has been a movie star for 30 years, and Ethan even longer—he was a movie star in his adolescence. But those guys have not lost any of their spark and their enthusiasm for the work. They’re still enthusiastic about playing roles. They work a lot—Ewan has directed, and Ethan has directed even more projects.
Apart from their skills, their talent and their experience, I think they brought a lot of humor into it. There was humor in the script, but they brought in all the stuff that’s not in the script: the reactions, the way they look at each other and rib each other and judge each other and respond to each other—all that brotherly stuff. To my great relief, at the premiere in Toronto, people found the movie even funnier than I had anticipated, and that’s thanks to the guys. They had great chemistry.
Were there any moments on set where the cast just couldn’t keep it together, because they just thought what they were doing or saying was so absurd?
When they’re in the cemetery, they take the casket to the hole, and Lucia (Maribel Verdú) says, “I want my son to see his father for the last time.” [The actors] all read the script, they all know what’s in there, but during the rehearsal, when they actually took the lid off and they all, for the first time, saw what was inside, everyone was just laughing and horrified! It was not unlike the reaction of the actual characters. They knew what it was, but none of them had seen it, and so that was just a riotous moment. I was thinking, “God, I hope this is not ridiculous. I hope I can get away with this!”
What was the plot twist you enjoyed writing the most?
Because [the film] relies so much on backstory and it’s not very plot heavy, I really wanted it to have twists and turns and reveals, so I was very relieved with any of the ones I could think of. Lucia saying, “[Harris] and I were lovers,” and the guys are surprised that their old, crusty dad was the lover of this hottie. And the reveal of the other boys [that he had secretly fathered].
But I think late reveals that were earned and that people find funny or tragic, like what is discovered in the letters. What I tried to do, because I find it satisfying in other movies, is not to do like an “October Surprise,” but to reveal something at the end that shines a whole new light on the movie you just saw, or planting things that then people forget, like when the wallet falls out. People have totally forgotten what he’s carrying in there. I enjoyed when I thought of turns and twists like that because it’s not very plotted—we have to dig the hole, and it’s mostly the afternoon in the cemetery—but you need surprises. It’s what keeps it alive.
Alfonso Cuáron is a producer on the film, so what did he bring to the producing side of this film, and what have you learned from working with him over the years?
I knew him even before we even worked together. We’ve known each other since we were 19, 20, 21. When I worked with him as a camera operator in a couple of films, first of all, [I noticed] that obsessive attention to detail. There is no shot small enough, there is no insert, there is nothing that cannot be made better. Just that insatiable search for betterment, which I don’t match. He has a talent and an obsessiveness for that.
And then over the years, we’ve read each other’s screenplays and given each other feedback. He said, “What are you doing?” And I said, “I’ve got this movie that I was working with Julie Lynn and Bonnie Curtis, producers I’ve worked with before, and it’s gonna be with the [director of photography] Igor Jadue-Lillo,” who’s also a friend of adolescence from Mexico with Alfonso. And he said, “Let me read it.” And he really liked it. He thought the script worked very well, and he offered to be a producer on it. He had a relationship with Apple, so that of course helped a lot. Most of his feedback was in the editing, especially the second part of the editing [when] you’re really polishing the movie. He has a lot of very good and very specific input on the hardest part, which is when the movie is finding its final form.
The physical act of digging deeper feels like a metaphor for the emotional journey that these two men go on, as they set out to bury this man who left such an indelible mark on their lives. The movie’s timeline only takes place over the course of 36 hours, but what do you think Raymond and Ray learn from each other and the new women (played by Verdú and Sophie Okonedo) who briefly enter their lives?
The funny thing is that I, myself, don’t know if their father’s last request that they dig his grave was done as a reward or as punishment. That’s a mystery that will remain. The men have long trauma that is decadeslong and that has shaped them, but my hope is that the day spent learning about their father, meeting people who knew their father, remembering their old wounds made them face their emotions. They have been lying to themselves about where they are with those feelings, and I think that’s what the day offers—the opportunity to face how you feel, act upon it, and I think that opens the door to change. No one changes in a day, but it opens the door so that they may take the opportunity to hopefully grow out of this adolescence or childhood that they’re stunted in.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
‘Raymond & Ray’ begins streaming Friday, October 21st, on Apple TV+.
