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| Red, White And Blue |
Women’s rights are high on the agenda in this year’s Oscar short film shortlists. It’s not uncommon for this to be the case, but what’s a little different this year is that filmmakers are addressing serious concerns in the US itself. Most prominent amongst the films focused on this is Nazrin Choudhury’s Red, White And Blue. Starring Brittany Snow, Juliet Donenfeld and Redding Munsell, it follows the story of a waitress who needs to get an abortion but who, thanks to the recent legal changes in her country, faces a journey of hundreds of miles to get it – not an easy thing when her family is already living in poverty. Her resources are stretched to the limit and she needs help from others to even make a start.
A couple of weeks after the shortlist was announced, Nazrin and I met to talk about the film. It was immediately obvious that this is an issue she feels very strongly about.
“I live in America, where we had a Supreme Court decision in 2022 which effectively reversed Roe v. Wade, which had until then protected the reproductive rights of women for almost 50 years, and anyone who has those needs, to get urgent and necessary health care,” she says. “It resulted in so much angst and real world obstacles for so many millions of Americans who were being denied healthcare that in some instances could save their lives. And so it felt very urgent and necessary for me as a storyteller to look at what was happening and to tell a very human story around this, in order to make an audience and society at large really understand what was at stake.
“Arkansas is particularly bad. It has a near total ban on abortion. To get any kind of healthcare in that respect, you have to go two states away to Illinois. Our story focuses on the character played by Brittany Snow – Rachel Johnson – who is forced to travel hundreds of miles away at great expense. Health insurance in this country is expensive enough without having to add the extra cost of gas and all the other considerations of not being able to get the necessary healthcare in your own state including the fact that not everyone has the ability to take time off work. It's a real, often insurmountable problem.”
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| Red, White And Blue |
Rachel’s financial situation is explored in a variety of ways over the course of the film. I ask about the production design, which is all the more important as a storytelling aide when making a short. What we see in Rachel’s apartment is particularly significant.
“It’s very layered in that way,” she says. “We want to tell a story with every single aspect of this film, whether it's production design or even small details like what they're watching on the tv. This isn't a family that has premium cable. Every aspect of the filmmaking is crafted to service the story. Our story is about a young, single parent who is trying to do her best by her kids and raising them by herself. She's working a job in which she relies mainly on tips. They live in a cramped one-bedroom apartment, with the bedroom given over to her two kids, and she sleeps out on the sofa bed that never gets put away because there is just not enough time in the day.
“This all feeds into the story of their dire financial circumstances. Every penny counts for just your everyday living costs with many Americans not having any kind of rainy day savings. So how do the characters like the ones in our story access this kind of urgent healthcare that should be able available to them 10 or 15 minutes away in their neighbourhood, or an hour away at the most? If you look carefully on the fridge, you see there's an impound release form that she's not been able to pay from all the parking tickets she’s not been able to pay. It’s a cycle of debt but now she needs that car and to find a way to pay it to enable her journey. There are several little details like this that we put in for the observant viewer, but the nature of the short film means we're moving through the story and allowing our audience to connect the dots of why it feels impossible.”
We see part of the vulnerability that poverty creates at Rachel’s workplace, when she's groped by a man who's sitting at the counter.
“I think that's a really key point. That happens to women on a daily basis. She has a moment where she looks at the diner owner as if to say ‘Are you seeing this?’ He shrugs, and implied in that shrugs is the sentiment ‘The customer is always right, get on with it.’ It is a pivotal moment in terms of understanding that women's bodies – specifically speaking about women, even though reproductive rights affect people who identify differently too –and our autonomy over our bodies is not a choice afforded to us. Other people can make a choice to grab us and there are instances in which we cannot say or do anything. All of that is tied into that moment in a meaningful way, both in that scene and going forward in the story.”
I tell her that something I find interesting about that scene is that Rachel is holding a pot of hot coffee at the time, and there’s a moment when we wonder if she’s going to throw it at the man. It shows us that she’s not in this situation because she’s physically vulnerable, which is often the narrative people assume about the way men treat women, but because of a larger, structural power imbalance.
“She may very well want to throw a pot of coffee on him, but it goes back to the financial struggles of it all,” Nazrin says. “Even if she wanted to do that, she can’t. She has to exercise extreme self-control in that moment and put up and shut up because she needs every penny she can get. She needs that tip money, because she knows she has to go out of state for an abortion and because she cannot afford to be out of a job. These are the compromises that you have to make all the time, compromises that no person should have to make but it is a sad reality. And like you say, it's not that she can't fight back, it's not that she doesn't want to fight back, but it’s that structural power imbalance combined with having to prioritise what you need to do.
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| Red, White And Blue |
“In that moment, she knows what she needs to do in the long term. You have to pick your battles, and unfortunately, that's a battle that she has to probably fight another day, in another way, at another time.”
There are all these different factors making Rachel’s life hard, but then, when she’s driving north, there’s a sort of musical interlude where she and her daughter kick back in the car and enjoy listening to a favourite song. What was the thinking behind that?
“She has been able to leave her son at home with someone who's taking care of him. Her daughter is along on the road trip with her, and it's a long journey, and she's trying to make it into a fun road trip,” she says. “We've seen already that they don't really get to enjoy much. They get food for free in the diner. There's a school fundraising event, as there is across many different schools in America – they have these events at restaurants, and everyone goes along as a social event with a percentage of the spend going to the school. Well, they can't afford to do that. Rachel is the mom who has to say no all the time. But since her daughter is on this road trip with her, it's about making it fun, making it joyous.
“They've never been out of the state of Arkansas. It’s a moment of lightness, it's a moment of bonding and reminding us that there's joy to be found in life, even amidst all the trials and tribulations that you might have.”
We discuss the importance of balancing tone more generally. This is a subject which will leave a lot of people feeling angry, I note, but the film never comes across as preachy.
She’s relieved to hear that, she says. “I just wanted to tell this story in the most human way possible. As a storyteller, I always try to balance stories that have some sort of gravitas or subject matter that is dealing with the harsh realities of life with lightness, because that's the breadth of human experience. Even in the dark moments, you can find the little things that bring you joy. And actually, in storytelling, it also helps illuminate the darker parts of the storytelling, by having those light moments.”
She talks about the theme of elephant matriarchies which runs through the film, and the way that human beings also look out for one another.
“I think if we're going to land that, then we have to show the moments and ways in which people come through for each other. There are moments of optimism and hope, of women seeing each other and helping each other.
“It's a female-led story. There are only female voices in this other than the young, unadulterated voice of Redding Munsell, who plays Jake. That was a deliberate, intentional choice for me, to cede the ground over to people whose reproductive rights are affected. My daughters, Iman and Alyssa, are the ones singing the song that plays during the car road trip scene. It's a track that they recorded with the help of a family member who's a musician, whose song it is. The road trip was always supposed to be a huge amount of fun. Our elephant metaphor that is used at the end of the film also translates, offscreen, to the herd of elephants that are our cast and crew, which includes the wonderful male allies who worked alongside some very bold and formidable female filmmakers to collectively help me tell this story.”
We discuss casting and she says that she immediately knew who she wanted to play Rachel.
“Brittany Snow is just such a phenomenal actress. Anyone who watches this film will understand just how phenomenal she is. I always knew what she was capable of bringing to this role, and she absolutely delivers.
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| Red, White And Blue |
“It was a no brainer to cast Brittany. She's so thoughtful. As a filmmaker herself, she comes from a profound place of thinking and caring deeply about everything that she does. The children were harder to cast but we found our perfect cast to form this little family unit, who help to deliver a story of great depth and poignancy, and bring the same emotionality to it as Brittany.
“Juliet and Redding stood out immediately during the audition process. I credit our casting directors for putting them into my orbit. When they read for the roles, I knew they were perfect for this. They were able to step up to Brittany's level and become this family unit in a way that is just extraordinary to watch on screen. And they are all just incredible human beings in real life, too.”
So how does it feel to be on the Oscar shortlist?
“We are so humbled and honored and thrilled at the same time to be on a shortlist of 15 out of the almost 200 that qualify to be considered by Academy members. That's no small feat. We feel gratitude, particularly because the Academy recognition means that more is seeing people might be minded to find and watch our film. That can then lead to us all having a conversation that is non-judgmental, across the political divide. It means we can change hearts and minds in an important election year for meaningful change. If this film is to have any luck in going all the way, hopefully that brings even more attention to our film. We're grateful to have got this far.
“The fact that an audience is also now seeing it en masse is a great tribute to the cast and crew, and also to anybody whose reproductive rights have been affected. We made this film to honour them; to honour healthcare workers and pay tribute to them. So many people have told me that they feel seen and heard through this, and they've thanked us for making this film. So because the Academy is paying attention to it, that means those hitherto unseen and unheard voices being seen and heard, and there might be some comfort in knowing that others are starting to understand the predicament that they have been put in.”
Red, White And Blue is now available to rent online.
