Filmmaker Demetri Martin decided to turn his grief into art. The 44-year-old writer and stand-up comedian’s father died when Mr. Martin was just 20, and for years he fought through his emotions, trying to come to terms with the loss.
Finally, he was able to channel his angst into a screenplay, which he wrote and directed, called “Dean.” In the film, bowing Friday in the District, Mr. Martin himself stars as the titular young man, who is trying to convince his father Robert (Kevin Kline) not to sell the family home in the wake of the death of Dean’s mother.
“The details and the plot were all fictional, but the emotional experience of it comes from my own family experience,” Mr. Martin told The Washington Times, adding his own struggles were somewhat different from Dean’s. “I was much more, I guess you’d say ’present,’ and kind of connected to my mom and helping her as I could,” Mr. Martin said of his real-life circumstances. “We tried to get through it together.”
In “Dean,” both Dean and Robert, amid their sorrow, are dealing with romance in their respective lives. Robert meets a fellow New Yorker named Carol (Mary Steenburgen) for whom he develops feelings, but is unable to tell her that he is in fact a widower. Meanwhile, Dean takes off for California, where he falls for Nicki (Gillian Jacobs), who may have some secrets of her own.
“I wanted to show people trying and failing to deal with things that are really hard to deal with,” Mr. Martin said of his script. “None of them are passive, but they’re going down roads that aren’t helping them. Almost going around grief and waiting it out.”
One way Dean works through his hurt is to draw. Mr. Martin employs an animated sketching motif throughout the film, a device that externalizes the emotions Dean himself is unable to countenance. But it also makes him seem out of touch and bizarre to everyone else.
“In real life I draw, so I kind of just drew on some of my own experiences,” Mr. Martin said of the narrative device. “I don’t feel like that awkward person, but I’ve learned over the years that many people see me as more awkward than I think I am.
“So even making this movie about myself, I thought maybe I can play that kind of awkward.”
Additionally, Mr. Martin had to meet the challenge of modulating his own performance while also leading the entire enterprise of “Dean” as its director — and on a rather modest budget. This allowed little time for second-guessing himself, which he said was a gift in disguise as he was cognizant of not constantly “watching himself” on playback or of wasting the time of established talents like Mr. Kline and Miss Steenburgen.
“I feel that’s just part of the price you pay: If you have the hubris to direct yourself, especially for the first time, take it like a man,” Mr. Martin said of keeping the on-set pace as brisk as possible.
Mr. Martin, who came up in the trenches of Conan O’Brien’s writing staff — which he describes as a “comedy graduate school” — before returning to writing and doing stand-up full time, said the reaction across generations to “Dean” has been gratifying, especially when the experiences of the older adults played by Mr. Kline and Miss Steenburgen have rung as true as those words spoken by Dean and his contemporaries.
“My wife is not in showbiz, but she did help me, specifically with some of those female parts,” Mr. Martin said of his spouse, Rachael. “Sometimes she’d say ’I couldn’t say that.’ Then I’d read her something else and she’d say, ’yeah, I believe that.’ She guided me, which was nice.”
Writing and performing stand-up comedy is a necessarily solitary endeavor, but it also provides instant feedback, Mr. Martin said. Scriptwriting, on the other hand, is a whole different animal.
“You write a script and you have no idea” if it’s quality, he said. “So when Kevin [Kline] responded and agreed to meet with me, I was so encouraged. It really started to get the dominoes falling.”
Mr. Martin said the experience of writing and directing a film has also given him an appreciation for the collaborative nature of filmmaking.
“The whole process gave me a lot more empathy for other people in the business and the various roles people play — even the wardrobe department,” he said. “It was interesting.”
• Eric Althoff can be reached at twt@washingtontimes.com.
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