TORONTO — As a kid, Matt Johnson spent a lot of time talking himself out of trouble.
“My mom would tell me, ‘Oh, Matthew, I'm so worried that you're going to say something rude to somebody, and they're going to knock all your teeth out,’” the Toronto actor and director said on a video call.
But not only did being a cheeky rascal teach him some valuable life skills, he said, it prepared him for his role in Toronto filmmaker Kazik Radwanski’s new romantic dramedy “Matt and Mara."
The film is driven by free-flowing conversations, most of them improvised by the actors.
“I think all of that time as a kid being kind of an idiot and trying to make people laugh gave me a good sense of how to verbally get out of a bad situation that I had put myself in,” added Johnson, who directed and starred in 2023’s “BlackBerry.”
“A lot of my scenes in Kazik's movies are me doing that.”
The Toronto-set film, which begins its Canadian theatrical rollout Friday, earned praise after its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival for its realistic performances and unique take on the rom-com archetype.
The movie centres on Mara, a creative writing professor played by Toronto’s Deragh Campbell, who is navigating a rough patch in her marriage when her iconoclastic ex – Johnson’s Matt – re-enters her life after becoming a successful novelist. As the two grow closer, an emotional affair of sorts arises as they tiptoe around their unresolved feelings.
“It’s a rom-com that can't quite figure out how to be a rom-com,” said Campbell, adding that the film is about “a relationship that is uncategorizable, but also really essential to your identity.”
As is Radwanski’s style, “Matt and Mara” began with “a skeleton of a script,” with actors freestyling the dialogue, often while ambling around downtown Toronto and engaging with oblivious passersby.
The writer-director said his inspiration for the film came from the on-screen chemistry between Johnson and Campbell in his 2019 feature, “Anne at 13,000 Ft.,” which claimed the Toronto Film Critics Association's 2020 award for best Canadian movie.
Radwanski said his filmmaking method usually involves taking an idea “that feels really personal” to him and then filtering it through an actor’s voice and thoughts as they organically figure out the movie's direction.
“I was interested in Deragh and Matt’s different ideas about the characters and how they would challenge the ideas in different ways,” he said. “They are opposites in a lot of ways, but I think there’s also a lot of shared integrity and interest.”
It’s no accident that Deragh rhymes with Mara, and that Johnson's character is also named Matt. Radwanski aimed to maintain a sense of realism throughout the film.
“A lot of the spark on set came from how it in some ways relates to our lives,” he said.
“I think that's also partially why it's so improvised. We wanted to always keep it feeling real or hovering or like a conversation people would have. We're also all friends. So we just wanted to keep shooting it that way."
Campbell said she had a “personal investment” in the film’s portrayal of a hard-to-define relationship.
“I think it says something about the world we live in and how it's structured so that there's no place for this relationship to exist, and so, some part of yourself is lost because of that,” she said.
The film challenges the definition of romantic love, Campbell added.
“It's funny because I feel that Matt and Mara are romantic, but I don't think it's very full of sexual tension. It's more like a dog chasing a squirrel.”
Nailing that delicate dance was a bit like capturing lightning in a bottle, requiring many takes to get the perfect moment, said Johnson, adding that he did his best to “not get frustrated with the process.”
"What Kazik does is shoot things again and again and again, in an almost misty way where you get the sense that he’s almost waiting for something magic to happen,” he said.
“And that can be very difficult to pursue because as soon as you chase after it, it vanishes.”
"Matt and Mara" opens at the TIFF Lightbox in Toronto on Friday, with a wider rollout to additional Canadian cities including Winnipeg and Vancouver throughout the fall.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 1, 2024.
Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press