A Rhode Island Filmmaker Brings Handle With Care Home

PROVIDENCE - Saturday, August 8th, will see the world premiere of Handle With Care, a new feature film written and directed by Matthew James Thompson, a Rhode Island native, as part of the Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival. The film follows Cole (Justin H. Min, After Yang, Umbrella Academy), a copywriter who finds himself responsible for selling off his unopened wedding gifts after his brief marriage to Reese (Nicole Brydon Bloom, The Gilded Age) ends in divorce before either had the chance to open any of them.

“Ashim [Ahuja] will attest that we've been trying to make a movie for like five years before we made Handle With Care,” says Thompson, who was born and spent his early life in Providence, of his efforts with Ashim Ahuja, who produced the film alongside Barret Hacia. “Since I didn't travel a traditional path of going to film school, [the film industry] was a total mystery to me.” Thompson, who’s been living in New York City the past 15 years, developed an impressive resume of commercials before making the leap to feature film with Handle With Care. Originally envisioned as a miniseries, Ahuja helped narrow down what started as a loose 220 page treatment into a 95 page script that could take advantage of New York’s photogenic backdrop while keeping the budget modest.

Thompson and his crew, whom he praises frequently, from first assistant director Emily Cohn to casting director SJ Allocco, were able to complete principal photography in just fifteen days (and without working weekends) with a crew that topped out at 25 people, but could be as few as just seven, such as when filming a scene where Cole takes a phone call on the ferry.

“How do we organize 30 people to get on this ferry?” poses Ahuja, “We don't need that. Let's be realistic with what we actually need. When he's walking all over the city, there were like 10 of us.”

“Our crew was not tortured on this process,” concurs Thompson, “If anything, I think everyone would say that they had a really good time making it.” Cinematographer Justin Henning would pitch the minimum number of shots needed for each scene to Thompson before filming, allowing them to work efficiently, but in a way that could meaningfully reflect their locations and be reflexive to the actors’ instincts. A standout scene featuring actress Catherine Curtin (Stranger Things) had originally depicted her character as a mason, but after location manager Justin Rosini found a workshop overlooking a cemetery, the scene was quickly re-shaped.

But it wasn't just the script’s filmability and opportunity to shoot a romantic comedy in New York City that let Thompson and Ahuja know this was a strong choice for a feature (as if that wasn’t enough).

“Looking at the story, we looked for elements that felt universal. There was always something about it that felt very current, but hopefully timeless,” says Thompson. “What I really would love for people to take away from the film is this idea that, it's okay to not know things. It's okay that things will come and surprise you. And actually having this rigid view of how everything needs to be and mirroring your life based off of Instagram ruins that magic of meeting a stranger and being open-minded. And you will only find this out if you assume that they're good and you're open to listening to them.”

It’s a heartwarming, often wryly funny, film that takes a holistic view at how love moves through the universe in often unobserved ways. From the conversations we have with neighbors, or the history of an omelette maker purchased off Facebook Marketplace, love abounds unnoticed in a world where so many are looking at the same screens, but are so rarely on the same page. As Henrietta (Catherine Curtin), one of the people Cole meets on his journey, says “You have two ears and one mouth, so, you know, use them accordingly.”

Cole takes the lesson to heart, and his fourth-wall breaking asides wane as he continues connecting with the people in his life, from the engaged couple he’s known for years (Jon Rudnitzky, who many will recognize from his short but memorable stint on Saturday Night Live, and Elizabeth Paige, who many will begin to recognize after stealing nearly every scene she’s in), to the citizens of Handle With Care’s New York — a beautifully photographed version of the city that firmly takes place in the present, but is populated with the type of warm supporting characters that call back to a halcyon era of James L. Brooks and Nora Ephron dramedies about lovable people trying their best. 

It’s a movie that loves movies. Characters don’t just evoke films like Moonstruck, they reference it. Cole’s neighbor (played by Rhode Island theater legend Peter Gerety) lends him Fred Astaire movies on DVD, and even the slick lawyer (Amir Arison, The Blacklist) eschews the traditional law office decor of paintings of yachts for a poster of Starting Over, the 1979 comedy/romance starring Burt Reynolds, Jill Clayburgh, and Candice Bergen. Another lawyer, in a brief audio-only role, is played by Bob Balaban, better known for his recurring roles in the whimsical worlds of Wes Anderson than anything in the orbit of The Firm.

“There is this shorthand with movies as a shared experience, and we're missing shared experiences as a society” says Thompson, “And I think it's leading to such disparate views on everything because we're not getting together in this dark space that we're really, you know, having that communal feeling.” It’s when Cole (who often wears a shirt from Film Forum, the famed New York art house theater) takes the time to stop espousing information to the viewer and listen to the stories of those he meets that the film truly comes alive, and creates the kind of movie magic best shared with others in a theater, such as the Avon on Saturday, August 8th, at 7:30 p.m.

“I think that's why we're excited to show it on a big screen,” says Ahuja, “'cause even though it was a small movie, we were dreaming big from the beginning, and we're always thinking about how people would watch it.” The Avon, founded in 1938 with the goal of showing “unusual pictures,” was also the theater Thompson went to as a child, and the site of his sister’s first ever date.

“It’s really a meaningful shared experience, either with a date, an old friend, or total strangers. I think there's just so much power in that.”

Tickets for the world premiere can be purchased through the festival’s website.