The Place Just Right

I was walking a country road a few years ago, and my kids were running ahead through a field. It suddenly occurred to me that they were so far away that they would be unable to hear me through the distance and wind if something sinister were to emerge behind them -- a bear, a lunatic, a zombie. I found that terrifying and at the same time fascinating. What would it feel like to see a loved one in danger, yet be unable to communicate a warning? That was the spark that ultimately led to The Place Just Right.

I had been thinking for some time about making my next film about survival after a societal breakdown. That was a scenario I couldn’t shake since I was a kid growing up in southwest Pennsylvania, not too far from where George Romero filmed his classic Night of the Living Dead. I used to find myself looking at the layout of our childhood house and imagining what rooms I could take refuge in if the undead attacked. I later read Stephen King’s The Stand, which stoked my survivalist obsession to a grander scale. More recently I was mesmerized by the Walking Dead -- not so much the zombies, but the dramatic possibilities of the survivors who are no longer tethered to enforced social norms.

The third element that led to this movie is that as a father and an environmentalist I had been struggling with how to protect my kids from disturbing truths about the world -- or at least delay telling them while they were young -- while ensuring that they learn the facts they need to grow and thrive. That struggle seeped into the mental percolations I was having about the survival story. I decided that the narrative would reflect the breakdown of our societal structures as shown through the lens of a single family.

The result of these three strands was a story of a broken family trying to survive after a pandemic wipes out nearly everyone. Adding to their difficulties, the family also have to cope with being unable to speak. The father, thrust into the role of a single parent in harrowing circumstances, struggles to keep his two daughters fed and physically safe while trying to give them some sense of emotional normalcy. The kids, resilient and perceptive, bounce back and forth between childhood exuberance, fear and grief for the mother they lost. And then, there are the bad guys. They pop up in the most inconvenient times, and they do bad things.

The Place Just Right is a coming of age story about the kids and their father. It also turns into a road movie when they can no longer stay safe in their house. In both aspects, it’s a movie about home -- home they fight to stay in, and a new home they are on a quest to discover. In the end, home is, yes, about a place, but it is also about who you are and the space you create, as a growing and changing young or older person, and as a biological or composite family.

I hope you enjoy watching the movie, the characters and their journey as much as I did while writing and directing The Place Just Right.
- Joe Murphy -