It’s a family affair in the thriller film manifest westMel Gibson’s son Louie Gibson co-wrote and directed, with his brother Milo and wife Annet Mahendru, in a gripping story about a family living off the grid.
“It was a character I’ve yet to step into, and that’s what drew me to it,” said Milo Gibson Yahoo Canada.
manifest west is told from the perspective of Riley Hayes (Lexy Kolker), who as a young girl sees her family unit spiraling out of control.
“Once upon a time there was a family of pioneers looking for a better life,” says Riley in the voiceover at the beginning of the film. “The family came from a big city, but then they ran out of money and had to leave.”
“It was a big sister and a little sister, and it was a mother and a father. They weren’t perfect, but they were family.”
Riley’s parents, Dave (Gibson) and Alice (Mahendru), move into a cabin in the woods with their younger sister, Mary (Madison Friedman), after Alice loses her job as a teacher. It turns out that Alice has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and Dave hopes this new way of life will be better for her.
“I wanted to explore it for myself too, maybe give up that cookie cutter existence and try to make a living from nature and see enough of that consumerism,” Mahendru said of what attracted her to the role of Alice. “Louie and I, funnily enough, they explored that ourselves after the movie.”
The Hayes family may have moved out of town, but the chaos and trauma that overshadowed their previous lives follows them to this new place.
“If you move to the top of a mountain, if you move to another country, your problems will follow you wherever you go, eventually they will catch up with you if you don’t deal with them in time,” Gibson said.
Choosing to tell the story from Riley’s perspective is certainly an effective storytelling choice by Louie Gibson and Joe Dietsch. It feels like a new take on family drama.
“I think if you finish telling it, parents’ eyes say, I think it gets very shallow and kind of boring,” said Milo Gibson. “Well, if you see it through the eyes of a child, I think it just changes the whole aspect of how a child perceives family life, what they hold on to, what they don’t hold on to, what they hear. ”
“[It’s] maybe also a more honest account of what’s really going on and the parents might be biased,” Mahendru added.
“In the story, our daughter is the one who finally shows up and says, ok, I’ll tell you what’s going on, you don’t actually know, you don’t want to see it because you don’t want to take the blame.”
“It needs a lot of support and understanding”
As Annet Mahendru worked to authentically play Alice as a woman struggling with mental illness, she spoke to several people, but also drew on her personal experiences of the postpartum period.
“We were all concerned about this portrayal and about doing it justice because mental illness affects many people and needs a lot of support and understanding,” Mahendru said. “It’s a very vulnerable condition that we’ve been investigating, and so we’ve all been a little bit cautious about it.”
“It’s nice to hear that people who’ve seen the film, several people have said, ‘That was my childhood, I saw it because it was through the experience of Riley, the kid… and I feel a little bit better.’ When I see this, my inner child feels recognized. So it was nice to get that feedback after all that.”
“Somebody told us the other day that what’s happening in there and certain things that happened is exactly what happened [to them,]added Milo Gibson.
“Dave is trying to be there for his wife while being blind to what he’s really doing. I think it gets to a point where maybe it gets a bit too much for him, and then he also floats away, as does her, leaving her two most prized things, which they love dearly, in the middle, unprotected, scruffy.”
Manifest West will be available on VOD/Digital on November 11th
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