Breakups are rough in general, but during the holidays? Abysmal. I believe there is no worse time to be broken up with. So, if you’re going through it and you want to feel a sense of community, “Breakup Season” is for you.
Indie director H. Nelson Tracey’s feature film dives into the messiest season of the year, a dark time of breakups, family drama and financial insecurities. The plot follows Cassie (Samantha Isler) traveling to Oregon to meet her boyfriend Ben’s (Chandler Riggs) family and stay with them for the holidays. On the first night of their stay, drama ensues and the couple splits up. In a bout of divine, cosmic punishment, Cassie is unable to take a flight home because of a snowstorm and she’s forced to spend the week with her newly-minted ex and his family. Yikes.
The awkwardness you’ll experience while watching and the ending message you receive may just help you work through your problems. “A lot of time right before the holidays is when people break up. People are trying to cut their losses,” Tracey said. The director/writer had been “rattling” the movie’s concept in his head for about 10 years. “I hadn’t seen this idea really depicted, I knew it was a story I hadn’t seen done before.”
He spoke of his past, and his connection that he felt to each of the characters in this film fondly. “I feel like one of each of those siblings,” he explained, in reference to Ben, Gordon and Liz (the siblings of the family). Throughout the film, the audience sees Ben actively going through his breakup, Gordon still healing from his previous relationship, and Liz entering her first serious romance. “What’s fun about the siblings is it shows the different stages of the relationships.”
The movie takes place in La Grande, Oregon, a place where not many films have been carried out. “There have only been two movies filmed in La Grande,” Tracey said. “I saw an opportunity to go to a town with access to everything, unlike LA.” He also saw opportunities with his choices in casting.
“It was really important for me to cast characters that were actually in their 20s but also had dramatic acting experience,” Tracey said. Riggs and Isler both had their crowning roles at young ages, and Tracey saw an opportunity to give them both some more mature, dramatic acting credits.
“When I reached out, this was exactly the kind of role she was looking for. She’s been a teen actor, but she hadn’t made the leap yet into a 20-something actress,” he said, speaking of Isler.
Tracey had a similar anecdote about Riggs: “Chandler, unbeknownst to me, only ever really gets opportunities for zombie stuff because of his previous work, so he was also stoked to finally get a chance to flex his dramatic acting muscles.”
If you’re looking to take sides as you watch, don’t bother. “It’s not a ‘team Ben’ or a ‘team Cassie’ movie,” Tracey said. It’s been difficult for many to even identify the real main character, and in my opinion, that’s a good thing. “When we were doing test screenings we were getting this critique that ‘I don’t know who the main character is,’ and you know what, that’s the best critique I can get,” he said. “In some ways, the main character is Cassie, because she was the catalyst, but it’s also Ben, because we went through his whole character development arc.”
Tracey even has some advice for the audience. “[A breakup] is a real bereavement, it’s a loss, and that’s okay,” he said. “I wanted to talk about time as a healing thing, because it really is.” Don’t worry about getting through it fast, follow the advice and let yourself breathe.
In that light, grab your popcorn, a bottle of wine and a fuzzy blanket. Screenings of this “Ex-mas” drama are limited, but launched on several streaming platforms, including Amazon and Apple TV, on Dec. 6. Celebrate National Breakup Day with this drama, and if you and your ex get stuck together in a freak blizzard, even better; you’ll have someone to watch it with.
Ava Hebenstreit can be reached at [email protected].
