The Trouble with Jessica director Matt Winn: ‘My ex-partner took her own life after we broke up’

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The director behind a brand new darkish satire starring British actors Rufus Sewell and Shirley Anderson has revealed that its plot was impressed partially by real-life occasions.

Matt Winn is the musician and author who created The Trouble with Jessica, by which two units of companions (performed by Henderson, Alan Tudyk, Rufus Sewell and Olivia Williams) try to cowl up the suicide of their pal, Jessica (Indira Varma).

After the preliminary reactions – the shock, the grief – then comes the anger, the blame and the resentment, because the surviving quartet curses Jessica for throwing their lives into chaos.

Speaking with The Independent, Winn defined that he was influenced by an expertise he went via round 20 years in the past, when his former accomplice took her own life not lengthy after they broke up. The incident had an “enormous effect” on his life.

“This element wouldn’t be in the film unless it was a personal experience,” he mentioned. “It essentially put my life on hold for 10 years, and some of that was my choice… we all have good and bad experiences in life, and you have no control over what happens to you, but you have control over your reaction. And unfortunately I struggled – I was definitely overwhelmed by it.”

Winn, whose earlier credit embody 2015 horror The Hoarder starring Mischa Barton, mentioned he realised “quite early on” that the particular person he was relationship was struggling with psychological well being points.

“I tried to help them, but quickly realised you can’t fix people, especially if they’re dealing with a lot of childhood trauma,” he mentioned. “But it derailed my life, and I became very angry at the system, and at mental health services.”

Indira Varma and Olivia Williams in ‘The Trouble with Jessica’ (Parkland Distribution)

Shockingly, Winn has additionally recognized two additional individuals to have taken their own lives in different individuals’s gardens: “One of them was a good friend, and the other was a boyfriend of a flatmate,” he mentioned.

“My friend killed himself in his ex-girlfriend’s garden, and I always wondered if it was a way of finding an emotional connection, or maybe he didn’t want to be alone… But this is what we try to get to grips with in the film.”

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Winn had the concept for a darkish satire in regards to the center courses a couple of years in the past, and felt as if Jessica’s dying would pressure his characters right into a fraught state of affairs the place “we don’t necessarily know what the outcome will be”.

“I love shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm, where the goal is to find the most uncomfortable situation possible,” he says.

The forged of ‘The Trouble with Jessica’ (Parkland. All Rights Reserved)

He and his co-writer, James Handle, labored to attempt to convey the motivations behind Jessica’s actions in as delicate a approach as attainable.

“To take your own life is a deeply unnatural thing to do,” Winn mentioned. “People often talk about it like it’s an ‘easy’ way out, which couldn’t be further from the truth. You only take your life if you are desperately, uniquely and clinically unhappy.”

The Trouble with Jessica has obtained optimistic critiques from critics, with The Guardian noting that the movie has “echoes of Carnage and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf“ and praising Henderson’s “terrific” efficiency as Sarah.

Meanwhile, in The Independent’s evaluation, critic Clarisse Loughrey mentioned Winn “has understood that the basics of farce are concerned less with the specifics of narrative and more with the ushering of a willing and talented troupe towards unbridled chaos”.

The Trouble with Jessica is in cinemas now.

If you might be experiencing emotions of misery, or are struggling to manage, you possibly can converse to the Samaritans, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), e-mail jo@samaritans.org, or go to the Samaritans web site to seek out particulars of your nearest department.

If you might be based mostly within the USA, and also you or somebody you realize wants psychological well being help proper now, name or textual content 988, or go to https://988lifeline.org/to entry on-line chat from the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. This is a free, confidential disaster hotline that’s obtainable to everybody 24 hours a day, seven days per week.

If you might be out of the country, you possibly can go to www.befrienders.org to discover a helpline close to you.

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