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Mar 06, 2015 By Sarah Winshall Web Exclusive

In Wild Canaries, director Lawrence Michael Levine stars opposite his wife, actress/director Sophia Takal as a couple sorting out their relationship problems while trying to solve a possible murder in their Brooklyn apartment building. The film is a delightful homage to classic screwball comedies updated for contemporary audiences.

We spoke with Levine and Takal about the influences that other films and the New York real estate market had on the conception of their latest feature.

Sarah Winshall [Under the Radar]: I know you have talked at length about the influence of other movies on the film. How much did Woody Allen’s Manhattan Murder Mystery affect Wild Canaries?

Sophia Takal: We watched it a lot of times before we made the movie. We love that movie so much and in general it’s one of our favorite films. But also [Manhattan Murder Mystery] is a reference to so many of the other movies that we like, starting with The Thin Man and Bringing Up Baby and even movies from the 70s like What’s Up Doc and all the way through to Manhattan Murder Mystery. I think we were inspired by all of them and I think Manhattan Murder Mystery in particular because it does take place in our city. And we were thinking, or Larry thought that it would be interesting to use the murder mystery to explore relationships.

Lawrence Michael Levine: That film was a template. There is a long line of these films where a couple solves a crime. There’s a tradition of it in literature. There’s a famous series called Mr. & Mrs. Norris. There’s a film that’s actually a lot like Manhattan Murder Mystery called The Ex-Mrs. Bradford, which is an old screwball comedy murder mystery. So we wanted to make a movie in that tradition and then also wanted to tie the murder mystery to what was happening in the characters’ lives, which is not something that is happening in those stories. In some of those, it’s just a couple solves a mystery, for example take a look at The Thin Man. In The Thin Man they just solve a mystery together but there’s no trouble in their relationship, it’s not reflected in the crime that they’re solving. Wild Canaries is very personal and the mystery that they solve its sort of a dark fun-house mirror as [the characters Barri and Noah] approach their upcoming marriage.

Not to give anything away, but New York’s current real estate market plays a large role in the plot. How does the current economic climate in New York tie into the film for you?

LML: It was very much on my mind because I was looking at The Thin Man, which is very much a champagne comedy. It was a fantasy of wealth that came out of the depression and in those days people would go to the movies to escape the realities of their lives. But with this film I wanted to reflect the reality. So I was aware of taking what The Thin Man was doing but saying, Hey, let’s look at the actual reality in New York. The middle class is really getting squeezed out. And when I write these films I have a dynamic that I wanted to explore between Sophia’s character and my character, Barri and Noah, and then I also had to think of a mystery that reflected those. I started to think, Why would somebody murder somebody else in New York City? And I started to think about rent control, my family is in the real estate business, I’ve been around it all my life. I understand the dynamics of tenant-landlord relationships and rent control, things like that. So it emerged from thinking about gentrification and the expense of living in New York and how much pressure that can put on people, and also how ambitious people are in New York and greedy, and that lead back to the story.

And I believe you shot some of the film in your own apartment?

LML: Barri and Noah’s apartment in the film is our apartment, and the building, the elderly woman who ended up dying [in the film], we shot her apartment in the actual elderly woman’s who lives in the apartment below me.

It was her star turn?

LML: That wasn’t her, but her apartment was. Which she has been in for 50 years and, you know, I think she pays some very nominal sum to live there. And there was a reality to that location as well. And most of that stuff was shot in that building because we were also thinking at the outset of making this film, What was I going to be able to do? I knew we could access my roof, my hallway at my own apartment and maybe another apartment or two in the building, and it seemed like I could make a movie that seemed bigger than the expense.

In the film the relationship between Barri and Noah is very much about navigating between petty arguments and larger issues. Is this something to which you two can relate?

LML: It’s funny, I feel like the dynamic between Barri and Noah doesn’t really reflect our relationship in day-to-day life as much as they reflect our relationship when we’re on a film set. Because when we’re on a film set it feel like a life or death situation and our most typical defense mechanisms come up. I get very uptight and Sophia gets very hyper. So the dynamic isn’t exactly us at all, but it does reflect how we behave on an actual film set. Sophia is nodding and laughing.

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Wild Canaries is now playing in select cities. For more information about the film, check out its website. You can read our review here.