Original-Cin Q&A: All My Puny Sorrows' Director and Stars on the Miriam Toews Experience
Based on Miriam Toews’ best-selling novel, Michael McGowan’s All My Puny Sorrows unexpectedly infuses wry humor into a heart-wrenching story of two sisters, Yoli and Elf, played beautifully by Alison Pill and Sarah Gadon.
Written and directed by Michael McGowan (Still Mine, One Week), the film was shot in and around North Bay, standing in for East Village (a fictional Manitoba town that Toews has used in some of her novels).
Our Bonnie Laufer caught up with Michael McGowan, Sarah Gadon and Alison Pill to discuss bringing this beloved novel to the big screen.
Alison Pill and Sarah Gadon
ORIGINAL-CIN: Michael, what was it about Miriam Toews' book that connected you to the story and made you consider bringing it to the big screen?
MICHAEL McGOWAN: Well, I'd read it and I hadn't seen suicide depicted in that way from the point of view of, “What if somebody had a rational reason for wanting to end their life?” Because it came out of Miriam's lived experience, there was just a huge truthfulness that I was really attracted to.
O.C: Tell me a little bit more about that attraction, because it's not an easy story to put on the screen. I understand you almost didn't even do it. You were pretty much dissuaded not to do it.
McGOWAN: Well, I couldn't really find a way through it for a while. I wanted to do it, but I was just too stupid to figure out a way to get through it.
One of the things that really did attract me to it is, when you talk about the phenomenal performances, Mare, Alison and Sarah, I just knew there were three great roles for these ladies. So in a small film, it's really important that you can cast, and I thought that this script from the book would have that. It had real potential and that was one of the huge draws for me.
Director Michael McGowan
O.C. Alison, you play Yoli, not an easy role to take on. Although there is a lot of trauma going on with her, she deals with it by deflecting to some dark black humor. Was it difficult to find that balance?
ALISON PILL: I think it all comes from Miriam's book and Miriam's perspective on it.
She has this wonderful, very strong matriarch who's really commonsensical and also incredibly funny. I think those two things are what have led generations of these women through their grief and through tough lives and I think that's the heart of it.
There's a scene when I ask Mare (Winningham) who plays our mother whether this is too much, how can we get through the sadness and the pain. You can find a way through, and I think that it’s only with the gift of humor that sometimes you can make it through tough, tough moments.
O.C: Sarah, I honestly don’t know how you got through playing Elf. Absolutely heartbreaking and riveting. You're dealing with a girl who is struggling with her grief and depression and ultimately wants to commit suicide.
How do you even wrap your mind around that? What kind of discussions did you have with Miriam Toews about it, because it is based on her own family experience.
SARAH GADON: Although there's so much in the book when I first signed on to do the project, I reached out to Miriam and asked her if we could go for a walk together.
I've done a lot of literary adaptations and often writers are so open and forthcoming in their literature. But in real life they're very guarded, or they have cultivated a persona.
They're very committed to standing behind, and I was so blown away when I went for a walk with Miriam and she talked to me about her sister and her mother and her family and her experience with depression and suicide in her family.
She was this open heart and this open book and I just couldn't believe it. I was so moved by it. And in the hour-and-a-half that we spent together, just kind of walking around Trinity-Bellwoods (Park in Toronto) she was just so raw and open.
I had never experienced anything like that before in my career and it was so beautiful, and I felt really honored to be a part of this story and to be a part of her family history in that way.
O.C. Michael, I want to know, when you started to work with these three very talented ladies, what surprised you about them?
McGOWAN: They were just really easy going. Whatever I said they wanted to do. (Laughs)
Alison was adamant about rehearsing before we started shooting. I generally don't really rehearse too much with the actors in my films. However, with Sarah and Alison we did a lot, and it saved us huge amounts of time. And now I can't imagine doing another film without rehearsal time built in.
So a lot of those hospital scenes especially, we did a lot of work with them to make sure we weren't repeating things. And then Sarah and Alison would go away and then come back.
That was probably the biggest surprise/great thing that happened because we only had 20 days to shoot this - and during COVID too, which surprisingly didn't really slow us down that much.
They were both fantastic and got us through without a hitch.
I spoke to Sarah a few years before about the project and she had great script ideas. They were both great collaborators and so smart, so it was really and truly a fantastic work environment.
I thought it was a great partnership with Mare as well, rather than working with somebody who has a point of view that is going to be ignored. We all worked it out organically.
O.C. Sarah, tell me about your sibling relationship with Alison here and how you built that trust. We don't all get along with our siblings all the time, but there's such a love-hate relationship between these two characters. I think you two truly love each other in real-life.
GADON: Yeah, we definitely do. I've known Alison since I was a kid, and what a lot of people don’t know is that we went to the same elementary school and so we have a history.
I've always looked up to Allison as a performer. She's an incredible artist and when I knew that she was going to be in the film, I was so excited. It was so amazing to have the opportunity to just watch her work and work with her as an adult.
We had worked together on a movie of the week called Fast Food High many years ago, so to have the chance to come full circle work with her as this incredible woman that she's become was a true gift. We shot it in the height of the pandemic so we isolated ourselves together, it was amazing. When I watch the film I feel so proud of her performance in this movie, like a sister would.
O.C. Okay Alison, your turn.
PILL: It's so amazing to have a 20 year history with somebody and coming in and out of each other’s lives over that time.
Sarah is a bit younger than me, but then you suddenly reach adulthood and you're like, oh wow, now we're peers and that significant age gap when you're 15 has dissipated.
It was the most special, fulfilling, heartful, experience working on this film with Sarah. She is incisive, and so generous as an actor and human being. I got to go deeper than I ever thought possible working on this film. Sarah’s critical mind, her knowledge of film and her deep well of emotion and kindness just made it such a joy to be a part of this project.