Strange Weather stars Holly Hunter and Carrie Coon as a mother (Hunter) and her best friend who hit the road. The mother is searching to understand loss and grief over her son.
The synopsis reads, “A poignant, lyrical drama about a mother, who, in an effort to deal with the grief over the death of her son, travels the back roads of the deep south to settle a score. A story of grief and forgiveness, of looking inward to find a way to move forward.”
Katherine Dieckmann wrote and directed Strange Weather. She talked to Women and Hollywood about the indie film, saying,
I wanted to explore the complicated path of an unconventional female protagonist in a way that felt real to me in terms of the women I actually know in my life — women I rarely if ever get to see represented on the big screen. They have reached a certain age but remain unresolved, alive, contradictory, compelling, and not prone to stereotyping.
“Strange Weather” deals with female friendship, learning to see outside the sphere of your own personal pain, and finding ways to overcome that pain in the process. These are all ideas that I was interested in exploring in a feature, and this story allowed me the context to dive into all of them.
I also wanted to set a story about one woman’s turbulence within the climactic instability we all live with now, so that the outer world reflects the inner world, and vice versa.
I don’t know about you, but that view of how the writer and director sees the film really sold me. This character sounds absolutely fascinating. Judging from the trailer, Holly Hunter is going to amaze in the role.
In another interview you should read in its entirety at Film School Rejects, Katherine Dieckmann said, “When we did that motel room scene with Carrie and Holly, which is probably my favorite scene in the movie, Carrie came up to me afterward and said, “I feel like I graduated into becoming a different kind of actor tonight.” Holly came up to me separately and said, “That Carrie Coon, she can go toe-to-toe.”
I checked out a few reviews, all written by men, and none were particularly enthusiastic about the film. Like any film written by, directed by, and starring women, I want to judge this one for myself. I find women sometimes have a completely different experience with women’s films than men do. A film about a grieving mother might be a prime example of that.
Strange Weather hits theaters and Video on Demand on July 28. What do you think? Are you going to check it out?
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