Many people know Caren Lissner as the editor in chief of The Hudson Reporter. Fewer people know that this longtime Hoboken resident is the author of a highly successful novel, Carrie Pilby, recently adapted into an independent film.
Originally published in 2003 as part of Harlequin’s Red Dress Ink series, the book was republished in 2010 under the Harlequin Teen label. It was considered one of the house’s smartest and most original novels and sold well. It has been released in other countries, including France and Italy.
For the generation that moved back to the cities a decade ago, Lissner’s novel captures the intense isolation felt by young women dealing with the challenge of adapting to a new social environment.
Some have compared the book to J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. Carrie Pilby came out at a time when TV shows such as Seinfeld and Sex and the City were looking at the impacts of America’s new urbanization. Lissner’s book found its niche, helping to expose the inner turmoil many young women feel in dealing with this new, challenging landscape.
Premiering at this year’s Toronto Film Festival, the movie was touted as a social statement, not just a chick flick.
Book to Film
Lissner says her literary agent sent the manuscript to Shari Smiley, a Hollywood film agent, when the book first hit the market.
“She looked at it and sent it out to some producers,” Lissner says. Although an independent film, Carrie Pilby caught the attention of major film companies. “Some liked it,” Lissner says. “ABC and Disney optioned it.”
But they were slow on the uptake.
“Four years ago, I got an email from Suzanne Farwell asking if the rights were available,” Lissner says. “As it turned out, they were.”
Farwell and Susan Johnson, both successful Hollywood producers, had loved the book and were looking for a feature film for Johnson to direct. Farwell is best known for producing films like It’s Complicated and The Intern.
The Carrie Pilby movie is Johnson’s feature film debut. She had already produced independent films for which she had won the Independent Spirit Award and had directed music videos.
Lissner was impressed with her.
“Susan Johnson put a lot of heart into it,” Lissner says. “She loved the story and showed me the script. I got to make suggestions; some were taken.”
Lissner says that Johnson took input from everyone and listened to actors’ ideas about line readings.
“The other thing is she cared from the beginning, thinking about the film 24/7,” Lissner says. “I would see her posting things in the middle of the night.”
In Front of the Camera
Bel Powley stars in the title role, along with Nathan Lane, who plays the therapist. One of the biggest challenges was to translate witty, sarcastic interior commentary to film. The solution was to have her therapist expose what was interior monologue in the book.
The leads have impressive resumes. Lane has played starring roles in a number of major movies, including Trumbo, The Producers, The Lion King, and perhaps most hilariously, The Birdcage. Powley can be seen in Equals, The Diary of a Teenage Girl, and A Royal Night Out.
Lissner says the actors were well-rehearsed and serious, but not formal.
“They knew what they were doing, and all of them seemed to be excited to be there,” she says.
They believed in the film. Lane, in particular, could have done any film he wanted, but chose to do this one. Michael Penn, who did the score, was inspired to get involved after seeing a rough cut.
It’s a Wrap
In 2012, the producers started raising money—the film was funded partly through a Kickstarter campaign, raising about $73,000 to hire a screenwriter to adapt it.
Since events largely take place around Christmas in Manhattan, a good portion of the filming was done there in December and January.
“They finished editing in July,” says Lissner, who appeared briefly in a nonspeaking role in a Central Park scene.
The script, she says, reflects much of the feeling of the book, although it extended the storyline in some places for dramatic effect.
“It has some new twists and new lines,” she says, and minor characters were added.
“The character is always learning,” Lissner says. “At the end she’s the smartest person in the room but admits she doesn’t know everything. The film shows that very brilliantly. There are some resolutions in the movie that are not in the book. I was trying to be subtle; movies need to be more dramatic.”
An Inward Journey
The novel Carrie Pilby has a lot in common with Voltaire’s Candide. Both examine human foibles and self-delusion, with the main characters alert to the ironies and hypocrisies of everyday life.
Carrie is a genius who graduated from Harvard at 19. A wealthy father in England allows her to embark on a Huck Finn-like journey of self-discovery. But her Mississippi River is a job
proofreading legal briefs at night and hanging out with a much more sexually experienced woman (Vanessa Bayer) and an oddball friend (Desmin Borges). Carrie meets a boy (Jason Ritter) who is engaged to be married. An attractive next-door neighbor, in an homage to Breakfast at Tiffany’s, plays the guitar on the fire escape.
Carrie is a highly intelligent young woman with nothing to fear. Her reclusive nature is not borne of self-doubt or anger, but of confusion at a world she neither comprehends nor values. She lives alone in a Manhattan apartment, reads voluminously, and views the sex obsession of the world around her as a national epidemic. She struggles to decode an immoral, sex-driven, hypocritical society, staying in her room, alone with her thoughts, rather than doing and saying things to fit in.
The novel reflects a truth-seeker lost in a complex world, where people fail to live up to their ideals. Like Odysseus, Carrie follows a roadmap for a changing landscape and comes to terms with the world as it is.
Lissner says the book is about figuring out which values to compromise on, and which to keep. In the defining scene, Carrie finally finds a dude but can’t lose her doubts.
The Envelope Please
Reaction at the Toronto Film Festival was positive.
One reviewer called it an “ambitious and surprising comedy” and said, “This is, ultimately, a very happy and upbeat film, and one with a very clear moral center.”
“Some of the people in the audience were distributors,” Lissner says. “There was a lot of laughter and clapping.”
The film is slated to come to U.S. theaters in spring of 2017. The book is available at BarnesandNoble.com and in stores. —07030