Happy Accidents
2000
hotels in Lisbondistributed by IFC FILMS
Co-Writer/Director/Editor
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Thessaloniki luxury hotelsSometimes the future is better than it used to be

the story

Lovelorn Manhattanite and recovering co-dependent Ruby Weaver (Marisa Tomei) has just about given up on finding the right man when she bumps into Sam Deed (Vincent D'Onofrio), a sweet newcomer from Dubuque, Iowa. They quickly fall for each other and almost as fast their relationship takes a mysterious u-turn into the Twilight Zone. Just as Ruby is beginning to relish her first ever "healthy relationship" Sam begins muttering about being a time traveler from the year 2470...

With the council of her therapist (Holland Taylor) and her friend Gretchen (Nadia Dajani) Ruby struggles to decide if Sam and she have a future together. Is he truly Mr. Right or simply a charming lunatic with an overactive imagination? But another of Sam's preposterous revelations sets the clock ticking and soon there is no time to spare. Ruby and Sam are forced to confront their true feelings for each other. Before it's too late.

Brad Anderson Commentary
“Happy Accidents is my third “relationship” movie. My fascination with this genre baffles me. It’s not that I don’t like relationship movies. It’s just that none of these films started out as relationship movies. Usually I begin with a very un-genre like, not particularly romantic concept. This concept drives my initial writing. But invariably, somewhere along the way, the story becomes about a relationship; or the eternal quest for one; or the lack thereof.

The Darien Gap, my first feature, started out as a personal documentary about my parent’s divorce, which I was going to illustrate with my family’s Super 8 home movies. By the time it screened at Sundance in ‘96 it had morphed into a loopy fictional narrative about a lonely, broke twenty-something who’s trying to make a documentary on his generation’s inability to committ to anything, who meets a hat designer, moves in with her, gets kicked out, steals a stretch limo, kidnaps his girlfriend and begins a crazy journey with her down the Pan American Highway to document the elusive Giant Sloth of Patagonia - all as a way to express his committment to her.

Originally there were no guys in Next Stop Wonderland. I only wanted to examine the life of a smart, introspective woman living by herself in Boston, grappling with loneliness but still convinced she is content. It wasn’t a relationship movie. It was an impressionist portrait. It became a relationship movie. Guys were added, one special guy in particular, a guy for her. Destiny took over.

Happy Accidents began as a dark, sci-fi experiment. I had read Times Arrow by Martin Amis. The novel’s narrative takes place in reverse. It begins with an old man rising off a gurney and progresses, in reverse, through the man’s life until he is a mewling infant, poised to be reinserted back into his mother’s womb. I always wondered if it would be possible to make a film in which the events literally take place in reverse but the characters percieve this world as normal. Effect precedes cause, death is birth, morality is flipped, good becomes bad, Bill Clinton is a saint, Ghandi a monster. Interesting ideas.

I wrote a short film based on these ideas. It was a dark tale about a disturbed man and the entire story took place in reverse. Then I realized I wanted to make it a feature. But I didn’t think an audience could withstand 90 - 100 minutes of reversed causality. So I decided only the lead character would see things in reverse. Of course it begged the question - why is he seeing things in reverse? So I started to imagine that maybe he has a condition, like a disease that makes him perceive time as backwards. So why does he have this condition? It started to dawn on me that if he was some kind of time traveler then a condition that skews perception of time would seem logical. Suddenly I latched onto this time traveler motif. But another question presented itself. How would one react to someone who claimed he was a time traveler from the future? And what if these two people were in a relationship with each other? The possiblity for absurd comedy began to become apparent....

And so “Happy Accidents” evolved into a relationship movie. A relationship is, after all, the ultimate crucible for examining the dramatic situation - and pulling out the comedy. We all smile knowingly when relationships in movies reflect our own common experiences (he likes the window open, she likes it closed). But it’s the differences that we find so compelling (he’s a time traveller, she isn’t). The exciting thing about Happy Accidentshotels Wien was it gave me a chance to really focus on an unusual relationship, it’s weird unpredictability, and the often seemingly self destructive things that bring two people closer together.”