During a dinner with filmmaker Blake Edwards and his wife Julie Andrews, actor Leland Orser found himself discussing writing with the director of such films as Breakfast at Tiffany and Days of Wine and Roses. “My wife [Jeanne Tripplehorn] had just finished a film with Julie,” Orser says. “And they had invited the two of us out. Blake asked me if I was a writer, if I ever wrote. I told him no, that I only wrote in a journal. He suggested to me that I had the ear and the voice of a writer and that maybe I should pursue it.” The nudge from Edwards led to the feature film Morning, written and directed by Orser, opening today at Sundance Sunset Cinema after making the rounds on the festival circuit. The movie, produced by Todd Traina and staring Orser, Tripplehorn, Laura Linney, Elliott Gould and Jason Ritter, follows a married couple faced with the death of their only child. It’s a poem of sorts, slowly unfolding, taking time to show each emotion experienced by the child’s father and mother. The understated filmmaking allows for detailed character development—people feel things in this movie and show it. And the couple suffers separately, often in solitude. There are long scenes filled with the heartrending actions (and inactions) that accompany an individual in mourning. Orser’s directorial debut is a small film, but it serves as a palate cleanser after a summer filled with blockbusters full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

By Elizabeth Varnell

 

Pictured: Jeanne Tripplehorn as Alice in a film still from Morning.
Photo courtesy of Red Rover Films

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