Filmmakers and close friends Jennifer Prediger and Jess Weixler, whose co-directorial debut Trouble Dolls had its world premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival last month, have incredible chemistry, both onscreen and off. In addition to writing and directing their film together, they also starred in it, as a pair of codependent bohemian best friends living in a tiny illegal sublet in New York who come to LA for a long weekend, where they have a tarot reading and then, naturally, audition for a reality TV talent show with a performance art piece. Prediger and Weixler admitted in a post-screening Q&A that the film was partially inspired by their own illegal sublet situation in New York and the death of Prediger’s cat, which also happens in the film— similarities that hint at the question: in what other ways did this art reflect life? Or, as Festival director Stephanie Allain put it: “What’s up with you two?”

Prediger and Weixler had  known each other for only about a month when they started writing Trouble Dolls together; Prediger says they “just felt like instant old friends.” Allain commented that the film is something of a love story between friends as well as being something of a millennial story, because it’s about young artists who “are really concerned with the world but unable to navigate it.” Prediger agreed, “It’s definitely a little bit rooted in some of the struggles you go through as an artist, as an independent filmmaker, trying to make your dreams come true.” Regarding the idea of the film as a love story, Weixler replied: “I feel like there’s always a point in your life where, with different people, they sort of become your world—being a friend or a girlfriend or a boyfriend—where they’re just everything to you and you need their assurance.” In that way they decided the love story could be “interchangeable between it being between friends or those feelings getting to be more,” she said, “and that ambiguity was okay.”

In addition to being defined by the relationship between two young women, the film alludes to the rival relationship between Los Angeles and New York. Sponsored by FilmL.A, the screening was a part of the Festival’s LA Muse section, which showcases films set in and inspired by Los Angeles. Weixler said, they were aiming for a “gritty New York versus shiny LA” dynamic between the film’s two settings, noting, “I think there’s something about how little space there is in New York that can kind of drive you crazy. For better or for worse, you’re smooshed in with a lot of people, and you usually have a very small space to live in. I think when people come to LA, there’s this feeling of promise, and there’s actually sunshine here, and everything opens up and you can stretch out.” Cinematographer Daniel Sharnoff added that “the light is wonderful here, and I completely understand why movies have been made here for a hundred years,” to thunderous applause.

Co-stars Megan Mullally and Will Forte joined in the conversation as well. Allain asked them about having two directors on the set, and whether that presented any difficulties or confusion. “I only recognize Jess,” Forte deadpanned, “I don’t listen to Jennifer at all. Jess would have great ideas. It was very easy.”

“I felt like their relationship is so symbiotic,” said Mullally, “I didn’t notice who was doing what, or even that they were necessarily directing. They’re just kind of whispering in each other’s ears and running to the other side of the room. They worked great together.” (After which Forte said, “I was joking, obviously. Jennifer, you are also very smart.”)

“It was like having alternating currents of electricity,” Prediger said, “and it just kept us both moving forward at all times, and I think this took on a life force of its own because we had each other. And the things and the people that came to the project because of us being a partnership were so incredible that I don’t think we could have done on our own in the same way. I’m just so incredibly grateful, and then for the friendship that you get out of that, and then the movie that you’ve made. To be able to say, ‘oh, we’re friends and we made this movie,’ is the coolest thing ever.”

Mary Sollosi / Festival Blogger