“Chicago playwright Brett Neveu’s 2002 play Eric LaRue is one of the most haunting and bleak experiences I’ve had in the theater, with final moments that have never left my memory,” wrote Reader theater and dance editor Kerry Reid in her review of Michael Shannon’s 2023 film adaptation, his directorial debut. She was referencing the original production of its source material on the occasion of a screening at the Chicago International Film Festival.
Shannon’s film adaptation of Neveu’s play—which premiered onstage in 2002 at A Red Orchid Theatre, where both Shannon and Neveu are company members—is near arid in its probe of a family following a tragedy. Judy Greer and Alexander Skarsgård star as the parents of a teenage son incarcerated for killling three people in a school shooting; both seek solace from different local churches, and this composes the action of the film.
“Thoughts and prayers” are generally all this country has to offer in the wake of such tragedies, which are still happening with little in the way of any direct action. I spoke with Shannon and Neveu about the film, its relevance to the current moment, and what it might say about us.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Kat Sachs: What made now the right time to adapt Eric LaRue for the big screen?
Michael Shannon: Well, frankly, it’s long overdue. I mean, the production I saw was in 2002, and [school shootings] just keep happening, you know? Not that I think the movie is going to put a halt to all of it, but I think I was ready to attempt to direct it, because I just worked with Brett on a play he had written called Traitor [2018], and I’d had such a phenomenal experience . . . and felt, I don’t know, linked to Brett. Brett has a very unique perspective and a unique aesthetic, and I don’t know if everybody gets it right away, but I felt like I was in the zone, having come off working on Traitor. And I just adored the [Eric LaRue] script so much when I read it, and I loved how Brett had changed it to translate it from a play to a screenplay. I thought he had done it very adroitly and very intelligently, and I loved all the new characters, and I could see in my mind, you know, people inhabiting those parts. I had ideas right away for actors that I wanted to put in there. It just kinda revealed itself to me. It wasn’t something I was looking for. It just kind of fell out of the sky, really. It’s like surfing—if you find the wave, you don’t waste it. Ride it.
The film really critiques institutions and how they process tragedy. I’m curious how you both see it fitting in today’s conversations on grief and accountability.
Brett Neveu: Turning toward the church . . . is what a lot of people do. Especially people who live in small towns, especially in the midwest, there’s a feeling about therapy, about seeing a psychologist, [and] it not being the right decision—or at least, you’ll be judged. . . . So going to the church, whether it’s evangelical or Presbyterian, in the case of this movie, is free. Sort of free. But also [it’s] a step that you don’t necessarily get judged on when you go. The issue, though, is that it’s faith based, and so there are rules, and there are variations on those rules depending on the church you go to, but there’s always a cost. And it may not be monetary, but sometimes it’s your soul, and who may be fighting over your soul. So that lack of intentional focus sometimes, I think, can be helpful for some, whatever “helpful” might mean in context, or damaging for some, whatever that might mean in context.
I really wanted to explore that, because I feel like that’s a big part of American society that we just do not talk about at all—the depths of how far people can invest in those institutions. We see a lot of—when there’s a school shooting or where there’s a tragedy that happens in a town—the pastors and churches come out, and they’re like, “We got this.” And I’m like, “Do you, though? Do you?” Because it keeps happening, and as opposed to judging that, exploring it is really important to me because there are churches all over the place. And in this case, I’m not exactly sure how much they help and how much they hurt.
Shannon: At the end of the day, beyond the church environment, they’re just people talking to each other. It could be in the church or outside of the church. I mean, there’s the notion of God—God intervening, God being there to help or assist or support, or help you deal with the situation or whatnot—but separate from that, there’s also just these people. All the characters in the film, they have their own trials and tribulations as well. It’s not just Janice and Ron—I mean, they obviously are dealing with something pretty monumental and traumatic—but you look at Steve, the pastor from the Presbyterian church. He’s going through a hard time himself, and even the people where Janice works, you hear her boss talk about all the problems her coworkers are having. Everybody has problems, and everybody is dealing with their own struggles. And nobody is necessarily finding an outlet or a way to overcome the problems that they’re grappling with.
In American society, there’s this erosion, I feel, of support for people, and this is definitely prevalent right now with what’s happening in the government—the notion that having some things in place, systems in place, mechanisms in place to support people and help them deal with the adversity of their life is not a meaningful or worthwhile thing, that it’s frivolous. And I find that shocking, that we’re not more concerned about each other, and that the concern that is displayed sometimes is a very brittle concern. It’s a very superficial concern, and it is very temporary. It comes, and it goes.
And that’s why I feel like this movie is so important, because . . . this is not the only movie that’s been made about school shootings. Obviously, there are some very beautiful, strong pictures that have been made, but they tend to focus on either the event itself or the immediate aftermath of the event. I feel like this is the first film that’s saying, OK, there’s the event, there’s the immediate aftermath, and then there’s something even after that that does not go away. That’s why I felt like this film was so important to make.
Eric LaRue (2023)
119 min. Fri 4/4–Thu 4/10, Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State, $13 general admission, $8 students and youth, $6 Film Center members, $5 SAIC students and faculty and Art Institute staff, siskelfilmcenter.org/eric-larue
How do you both see this kind of storytelling? Is it a means of making sense of tragedy or a way of confronting its unknowability?
Neveu: That second one. I try very hard to offer some sort of, not a solution, but an ending. . . . I like endings. I like stories that have endings. And whether the ending is semi–ambiguous or not, or leaves people wondering what happened, that’s still an ending to me. But I feel like I’m not offering an answer, or the story doesn’t offer an answer—it offers a human reaction to everything, the accumulation of everything that’s happened before. Other stories I write have completely different endings, maybe similar situations—or in my head, they’re sort of similar situations—but a character makes a different decision. And I think that’s it: the offering of the possibilities for what would you do, or what does this character do?
My goal always is—and maybe this is because I used to be an actor—empathy. It’s like, let’s sit with this person. I mean, there have been studies recently of brain chemistry being changed because of film, because of empathy being felt. You get to feel something, and it changes the way you view a lot of stuff. This physically changes the chemicals in your brain. And not that I’m necessarily setting up those giant, lofty goals, but I feel like that is what I want. It helps me. That’s what I’m looking for. . . . I need to understand and offer up some ideas around this so I can just lessen the amount of questions that are in my head, because it can be overwhelming.
Shannon: And I think it’s Death of Salesman . . . where Mrs. Loman says that attention must be paid. That’s what we’re doing. Attention must be paid.
How has your perspective on the story changed since it was first written and staged?
Neveu: It hasn’t changed. Zero. I’m angrier, I guess. But it’s hard to think that I’m angrier now than I was at age 28 because I was a pretty angry young man. I still have flashes of that same anger. But it’s through this process and through the conversations that we have with the cast and crew [and audiences], certainly with Michael and the people I’ve worked with on this story, whether that’s the stage version or the film, I feel like those conversations, that’s the thing that changes—bringing this specific story about people, as Michael said. It has a school shooting at its center, but it’s about people dealing with a lot of different things.
Shannon: If I only had one word to say what it’s about, I would say it’s about confusion. It’s a movie about confusion. It’s a movie about how confusing it is to live in this country. I mean, at the end of the day, you can be outraged about what’s happening or whatever, and I’ve certainly experienced a lot of that over the years. But I’m getting to a point now where, more than anything, I just find it confusing.
And in terms of how it’s changed since I first saw the play . . . the analogy that popped into my head is if you were at a lake or something, and you saw this little toy boat that was just kind of floating in the water by the bank of the lake. Like, back then, it was like that. And now it’s like the boat has just floated out to the middle of the lake, and this fog has rolled in, and it’s just completely mysterious and ominous. Everything is kind of unmoored and untethered, and every day you wake up and you think, “Certainly I cannot be more flabbergasted than I have been lately,” and then something happens and you’re like, “Oh, no, I have not reached the threshold of flabbergastedness.” It’s continuing to boggle my mind.
“There’s the event, there’s the immediate aftermath, and then there’s something even after that that does not go away.”
And there’s the macro level of that, which is, you know, what’s in the media and the government and whatnot. And then there’s the micro level of that, which is just people dealing with each other and interacting with one another.
That’s what I was seeking to highlight in making this film: the extraordinary amount of confusion that people have encountered, even in intimate relationships with people. It’s so strange. Ron and Janice have one child, Eric. It’s a very intimate unit. It’s just three people, and yet you get the sense that these three people don’t know each other at all or have any idea how to interact with one another. I feel like that happens all the time, particularly in our country. It’s like you see people that on the surface are “together,” you know, part of a “community” or a “family,” and they’re complete strangers to one another. And it’s just really disconcerting.
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