HOW TO BE/WATCH AND LEARN

Which is harder? Making a film about growing up? Or growing up? Or are they, in fact, the same thing?

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The new British, coming-of-age pic How To Be by director Oliver Irving is a case in point.

This features Art, Harry Potter’s Robert Pattinson (pictured left, in a tense moment), as a frustrated musician and rejected lover who does the only sensible thing when faced with adversity in contemporary society: he moves back in with his middle class parents (main photo).

Well, he could hardly move in with his best (only) mate, the agoraphobic Ronny who is holed up in a London flat in a daze of nitrous oxide and electro music dreaming of starting a band that never goes out.

Thank goodness for self-help guru, author of It’s Not Your Fault, who further complicates domestic arrangements by moving in with the cramped family as Art's full time life coach. .

As for director Irving’s journey, although there is no evidence that he has been hiding at home to date or even thinking of doing so in the future, there is no doubt that it has required some careful attention to find the right path for the How To Be.

Irving has been working on it since leaving Bournemouth film school (alma mater of Full Monty’s Simon Beaufoy) in 2003, first working with his long-time creative collaborator, composer Joe Hastings, on the script and, at the same time, the score which is integral to the film.

They organized rehearsals to test out the material early on, working with friends such as Michael Pearce and Johnny White, who have acted in many of his previous films and who play Nikki and Ronny in How To Be.

Oliver credits this extensive rehearsal time was one of the ways he managed to complete the film within the tight shooting schedule.

Producer Justin Kelly joined the project in 2004. They spent the next two years developing the script and getting together the remaining cast and crew.

The budget (under £1m), was raised by hosting investment evenings at which private investors were asked to buy shares and the film was shot in 25 days in early 2007 on S16mm in London, England.

Not surprisingly, given the subject matter, the film was an immediate hit with the festival crowd, starting with a popular slot at the elite Slamdance Festival early last year.

Now it is time to find a cinema for release to the larger world. Certainly Irving and Pattinson feel they have come of age and are ready to move on.

For a taste of what they have to offer, catch the trailer on the How To Be site.

Posted April 28, 2008.