We chat with DarbyAndTheDead director Silas Howard about the decision to break the fourth wall and the meaning behind Darby's ultimate epiphany in Hulu's new drop-dead comedy:
WARNING: This article contains spoilers for the movie Darby and the Dead.Starring Riele Downs and Auli'i Cravalho, Darby and the Dead is now available to stream on Hulu. After the school's Queen Bee dies in a freak hair-straightening accident, she begins to live vicariously through her ex-friend Darby, who has the power to communicate with the dead.
Silas Howard: I developed it with the producers for a little bit of time, but it was just the gallows humor in the face of loss. It's one of my favorite things. I think it allows people to connect through traumatic events, to be able to have humor. I also loved that it was about empathy or thinking that we know who people are across the room and that they're judging us. When we actually meet them, that breaks down.
It's about, like, "I'm in the epicenter of everything as a junior." I guess it's hard to answer the question, but I think there's a lot around grief that is—either we're performing grief, or we're trying to stuff it down. And so I think eventually we find a place where we earn it with the two, hopefully. There's emotional resonance of the two friends and actually feeling a little bit of that grief. But I don't know if that answers your question.
Silas Howard: We talked a lot about a friendship map. We made a friendship map for the movie because we're shooting out of order. The supernatural was all fun and part of the story, but the engine of it is this friendship and the way that when Darby lost her mom, she lost the friendship with Capri and Capri lost Darby. I think it was just making sure that we never lost sight of that—that it wasn't just playing the joke, it was playing the characters.
Silas Howard: I'm so glad you asked that question, because actually, no one has yet. It was very intentional that we weren't showing popularity as good or bad. I love that the outsider—the nerd character, Darby, is actually super cool and well-formed and her judgments are her fears. Cheerleading is different now. I did interviews with kids who are on cheer now, and it's different than the Bring it On era.
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