Private Project

Better Half

After 40-years of codependent marriage, a husband makes a life changing decision to ensure that he will never have to endure another waking moment with his wife.

  • Pete Johnson
    Director
  • Adam Jones
    Director
  • Pete Johnson
    Writer
  • Adam Jones
    Writer
  • Joe Calabrese
    Producer
  • In Association with SATURDAY MORNING
    Producer
  • Tom Mardirosian
    Key Cast
    "Husband"
    Presumed Innocent, Trading Places, HBO's "Oz"
  • Ronnie Farer
    Key Cast
    "Wife"
    Donnie Brasco, Safe
  • Nicholas Bupp
    Director of Photography
  • Tom Scherma
    Editor
  • Daniela Clementi
    Prodcution Designer
  • JSM Music
    Music
  • Steve Marchese
    Executive Producers
  • Joel Simon
    Executive Producers
  • Joe Calabrese
    Executive Producers
  • Pete Johnson
    Executive Producers
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Dark Comedy, Comedy
  • Runtime:
    22 minutes 48 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    September 5, 2019
  • Production Budget:
    120,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Pete Johnson, Adam Jones

Pete Johnson is a creative director/writer with lengthy experience in commercials and now short film. Currently, he serves as the Executive Creative Director of Deutsch NY where he oversees the creative development for the agency’s national and global accounts. Along the way he’s won many industry awards including Cannes Lions, Clios, One Show and in his free time he’s managed to pen many short and feature length screenplays. A Better Half is his directorial debut.

Adam has directed hundreds of TV commercials and content projects for national and international brands around the world. He’s developed a wheelhouse in comedy dialogue, improv and visual storytelling. Along the way his spots and shorts have won a number of awards including Cannes Lions, Clios and CA Annual as well as a handful of film festival awards. His web series, “The Stay-At-Home Dad”, was lauded by Comedy Central and viewed over 4 million times.

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Director Statement

The older couple sitting together at a restaurant with nothing left to say… They’ve said it all. It’s an image we all know, but few of us ever think will be our own fate. Yet in this moment there is something incredibly sad, unbelievably funny and breathtakingly human happening.

This movie is about that relationship. The sober end of a forty year run and what that does to a man, a woman, and a marriage.

Adam and I conceived a Better Half on a rainy day in Vancouver during a commercial shoot neither of us wanted to be on. Between us, we have nearly 40 years of marriage experience, and after reading a real-life news story of man who went to desperate lengths to leave his own long marriage, we were intrigued and inspired.

In the two years that followed we, along with executive producers Joe Calabrese and Steve Marchese, painstakingly assembled a group of amazingly talented people who wanted to come along with us on a journey to tell a story not often told, about older people at the end of their lives and their loves, who are all-too-often overlooked in our society.