Movies
Second chance brings him "Home" again

By John Hartl
Special to The Seattle Times

RAFY Robin Wright Penn, Dallas Roberts and Colin Farrell star in "A Home at the End of the World." The film opens Friday at the Harvard Exit.

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Based on Michael Cunningham's 1990 novel, "A Home at the End of the World" introduces us to characters we've never really seen before in an American movie.

Two teenage boys, Bobby and Jonathan, experiment sexually with each other and become best friends; one turns out to be straight, the other is gay, and no shame is attached to their adolescent fumblings. As the boys grow up, they form a ménage à trois with Clare, an aging free spirit who gives birth to the straight boy's child. The threesome move into a house together.

"The perfect couple for each of them is a combination of the other two," claims the director, Michael Mayer. But he acknowledges that the situation eventually becomes "an impossible bit of geometry."

Cunningham's novel reveals the characters by having them narrate separate chapters. Each gets a chance to explain his/her feelings. Cunningham, who somewhat reluctantly accepted an offer to write the screenplay, toyed with the idea of keeping that format, but finally decided it wouldn't work for the film, which opens Friday at the Egyptian.

"A young playwright had already written a script, but it didn't feel right," said Cunningham during a brief Seattle visit. Mayer and actor-producer Tom Hulce, who optioned the book 10 years ago, convinced him to take a crack at it.

"At the time, I didn't think the author of a novel should write the screenplay," said Cunningham. "Supposedly you'd done the best you can do in one form. I'd prefer to see what someone else does with the characters." Indeed, his most recent novel, "The Hours" (which won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize), was adapted for film by David Hare. An earlier novel, "Flesh and Blood," which is likely to become a Showtime miniseries, will be adapted by another writer.

"But so much time had passed, it was as if the book had been written by someone else — I decided I'd like a second chance at this story," he said. "Tom was adamant that it be centered on Bobby. We agreed that the film couldn't have four focuses." (Other chapters are narrated by Jonathan's mother, Alice, who accepts her son's homosexuality and eventually welcomes Bobby into the family.)

	Michael Cunningham's most recent novel was "The Hours"

Cunningham described the search for child actors to play the younger Bobby as "second only to the search for Scarlett O'Hara." The result is a rare visual matchup between children and adult actors. Colin Farrell is Bobby in the 1980s, Andrew Chalmers plays him in the 1960s, while Erik Smith takes over in the 1970s. They look so much alike that it's difficult to tell when one actor has left the film and his replacement has taken over.

Sissy Spacek plays Alice and Robin Wright Penn is Clare, but for the role of the adult Jonathan the filmmakers wanted a new face. They decided on Dallas Roberts, a Juilliard School graduate who appeared Off-Broadway in Lanford Wilson's "Burn This" and will soon be seen in three more films.

"Every movie, especially low-budget movies, should have one great part for an unknown actor," said Cunningham. "We wanted to give a shot to someone no one's ever heard of. We looked at tapes of 15 actors. There were prettier boys, and femme-ier boys, but Dallas had a quality of soul and a kind of gravitas."

As for the director, Mayer, who is also making his film debut, Hulce and Cunningham had been interested for years in working with him. His Broadway credits include "Thoroughly Modern Millie" and "After the Fall."

Hulce, who has done some stage directing, never suggested directing the movie himself.

"I think Tom felt we needed a more experienced director," said Cunningham. "He has a kind of egolessness that the world could use more of."

Although Warner Independent Pictures, which is handling the film, wanted some cuts, Cunningham said the filmmakers were able to hold on to six crucial minutes. As for the rest, there's always the DVD.

Meanwhile, Cunningham has just finished another novel, and he's working on an original screenplay he wants Mayer to direct. He's also thinking of creating an opera, "a big drama, bordering on melodrama," about a man returning from the war in the Middle East.

"I have no idea where any of this comes from," he said.

John Hartl: johnhartl@yahoo.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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