Head ”Saturday Night Live” writer Chris Kelly has written and directed a new film that’s earning raves for the complex, nuanced queer protagonist at its heart.
Released Sept. 9, “Other People” follows David (Jesse Plemons), a television writer who returns to California to care for his ailing mother (Molly Shannon) after splitting from his boyfriend. Once David arrives, however, he’s forced to confront his conservative father (Bradley Whitford), who never quite accepted his son’s sexuality. (View the trailer for “Other People” above)
The movie, which debuted at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival in January, has already earned praise from critics. The Chicago Sun-Times called it “smart, lovely, funny, occasionally edgy, slightly cynical and ultimately heart-tugging,” while Variety praised it for featuring “gay characters as three-dimensional figures.”
Check out a scene from the film below, then scroll down to keep reading.
The first openly gay head SNL writer, Kelly based “Other People” on his personal experiences following the 2009 death of his own mother.
“I wanted to write something more tonally serious where the comedy comes from sadness... I wanted to write something I felt I could do in a truthful way,” he told IndieWire in January. Still, fans of Kelly’s humorous SNL sketches will find much to admire in the new film, too. “You’re seeing the movie through the eyes of a comedy writer and as someone who ‘escaped’ a small town to New York City, [who has] the tendency to see other people as jokes or punchlines,” he said.
We’re tearing up already. Grab a tissue, and catch one final scene from “Other People” below.
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