An interview with 'Remember Me' screenwriter Will Fetters

Anyone that read my review of Remember Me already knows I enjoyed it, and was one of the select few. In fact, I have strong opinions of the film, not from the perspective of how great the acting is or whether director Allen Coulter turned in a tour de force bit of filmmaking navigation, but merely at the idea behind the film and its intentions. However, it's intentions, it seems, have been largely lost on the critical community.

Remember Me has been painted as a romance story by the majority, but is it? I saw it as something entirely different. As a result, it became a case of reading review after review and saying to myself those most cliche and pompous of all phrases, "They just don't get it." But instead of writing some all-encompassing editorial of how I thought I was right and everyone else was wrong I decided to go to the source. I contacted Summit Entertainment and requested interviews with first-time screenwriter Will Fetters and director Allen Coulter. Coulter, as it turns out, is on vacation for a week, but Fetters was available for a conversation and our discussion ended up being more than enough when it came to realizing my intentions of the piece.

Fetters began work on what is a very personal script for him in 2004, at the age of 22. The story had been boiling around in his head for about two years since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and while trying to go to law school, it took a misunderstanding with Delaware law enforcement to finally find a starting point, a misunderstanding that can be seen in the film in a slightly fictionalized form as Tyler (Robert Pattinson) is arrested by Chris Cooper's character. In fact, Will describes the film as very personal, saying the relationship between Tyler and Caroline (Ruby Jerins) is a very literal one, resembling the relationship he has with his two younger sisters. While this relationship, and the relationship between Tyler and his family and his new girlfriend (Emilie de Ravin) and her family are central to the story, it's not specifically about those relationships.

So what is the film about? What were Will's intentions? This was the starting point of our interview, which took place on Monday, March 15, three days after the film was released to largely negative reviews (28% on RottenTomatoes) before going on to make $8 million opening weekend after being made for $16 million.

Featured below is our lengthy conversation addressing what the film is about, the critical reaction and how Fetters is handling such negativity on what is only his first screenplay.

What is the film about and what were your intentions?

Will Fetters (WF): It seems people didn't seem to get what the film was about. I think on some level, even getting what the film is about, people aren't necessarily going to like it. I think preconceptions tend to play a role, and what this film was, in a lot of ways, was a study of grief and a study of these "bolts from the blue" that alter the trajectory of life and for me the script started as a 22-year-old kid's therapy session.

I had some personal tragedy in my life and this broader event occurred and it dovetailed what I experienced as a young man into the same kind of anger and sadness that follows, and this story, this script, was a way to kind of work it out.

I think the fairest criticism that I've read is going after the basic story points, which when you write a love story you're going to tread on similar grounds, that kind of stuff I really get. Some of the dialogue is a little cute and some of it seems contrived, I get that, but I think a lot of people aren't getting what our intentions were. Like the idea I wrote this 100-page script and then with five pages left I didn't know how to end it so I did this with 9/11. It was so far from that. This whole movie is about dealing with that trauma, dealing with that anger and trying to see how people can be united and divided by it. source