Jodie Rimmer has finally
made the big-time - lead in her first feature film - but right now she's "between
acting assignments" again. Many thanks to Elizabeth Luce for the transcript and the graphics
Wellington Styles
April/May '99 (Cinema Juice Section)
I'LL MAKE YOU HAPPY
Jodie Rimmer has finally
made the big-time - lead in her first feature film - but right now she's "between
acting assignments" again.
"lt's hardly glamorous getting paid $10 an hour to make coffee etc, but it keeps me grounded... and I appreciate the acting work so much more when it comes along says the 24-year-old Aucklander.
Jodie "relished every second" playing teenage hooker Siggy in I'II Make You Happy.
With the help of agoraphobic HIV-positive flatmate Lester (Carl Bland), unassuming bank clerk Drew (lan Hughes), dominatrix Fran (Sandy Ireland) and sex workers Mickie (Rena Owen) and Mel (Jennifer Ward- Lealand), she hijacks her sleazy pimp's drug deal and makes everybody happy.
Oops, I've given away the ending.
But although you know they're all going to live happily- ever-after, director Athina Tsoulis (who wrote the script with her sister, Ann) wanted to avoid cliched plot ploys.
"There's no
moralising, says Jodie. "She's not a victim, she's a stroppy little bitch basically;
a typical I9-year-old who thinks she's indestructible.
Well, no overt moralising, but men are all portrayed as slaves of lust and women as cynical sexual manipulators.
Tsoulis and producer Liz Stevens created the fine-cut on just $130,000, before the Film Commission granted post-production money. Everyone deferred their fees and the film was shot in four weeks and two days.
That gung-ho enthusiasm is apparent in the final cut - it's a carefully crafted, fast-paced, light-hearted, light- weight little romp.
Yeah, we're dealing with gritty issues and tawdry sad little lives here, but the film
does not claim
to make any heavy statement
about the meaning of life, says Jodie.
A stylised version of Auckland's K-Road puts it one remove from reality.
"We have this 'doomy gloomy' tradition in New Zealand art - like something has to be deep and meaningful before it's valid. Comedy is actually much harder than straight drama," says Jodie.
"We just want people to leave thinking, 'That was fun'."
Siggy wants to make you happy too.