Born from a desire to play with the victim stories typically associated with women, Fuck Me, Richard sees a romance-obsessed loner swept up in a passionate long-distance love affair with a man who may not be as perfect as his sultry voice suggests. Written by Lucy McKendrick, Fuck Me, Richard is brought to life by her fabulously deviant affirming performance and directed by McKendrick in unison with filmmaker Charles Polinger. It’s a film unafraid of showing us the sides of women not often portrayed in these types of narratives and juxtaposes an idealised world of old romantic films and ethereal dream-like fantasies against the queasy concerns of our lonely lead potentially being suckered into a modern love affair scam, all whilst being injected with welcome dark humour throughout. Following Fuck Me, Richard’s recent online release, we spoke to the directing duo about their decision to only let us hear and never see the male love interest on screen, creating the film’s fantastical moments and McKendrick’s experience embodying the manic energy of our housebound protagonist.
I love the subverted trope of the damsel in distress, these are the women we need to see more of on screen! How did you work on balancing the desperation and loneliness with her bad-ass nature?
I wanted to write myself a character who was a little delusional, a little desperate. I wanted to create an unflattering portrait of a woman, both in how she lives, alone in a messy house filled with used takeout boxes and in how she operates – lying, manipulating, and pressuring men into phone sex. I like writing women who have the capacity to do bad things, giving them the power to follow their deviant impulses. And I also just thought it was a playful and dark twist on the woman-as-victim trope. I love watching the film with an audience, particularly a female-heavy one, because people seem surprised, and refreshed even, to see a woman lying, manipulating, getting what she wants, even if it’s totally messed up.
It was a playful and dark twist on the woman-as-victim trope.
How did you plan out and put together those dream-like, romantic sequences which juxtapose with the harsh duplicitous reality she initially appears to be succumbing to?
We built everything around this theme of romance vs decay. We wanted to bring that feeling into all the aesthetic choices, constantly contrasting those two ideas. So the fantasy sex scene had to be wildly, unrealistically romantic, wind blowing, curtains flapping, but then also have that sense of decay and danger through the lighting, the thunder. We were inspired by Wong Kar Wai and Brian De Palma in trying to create immersive sensual sequences that felt specific to Sally’s fantasies, which are ethereal, heightened, and a little campy.
We worked to create a tone and look that externalized her psychology and wants.
Why did you want to lean into the feelings of the old Hollywood romances?
Sally is the type of character who lives more in her fantasies than in the real world, so it felt right to weave her obsession with Classic Hollywood Romance into the fabric of the film’s aesthetic. We worked to create a tone and look that externalized her psychology and wants: pining for another time, longing for a whirlwind romance, but being stuck looking for men on dating apps and having phone sex alone on the couch. In the absence of having another human in the room to create the romance, we tried to evoke that dreamy feeling of romance with the physical space itself through wind, fabrics, light, etc.
Did you always decide we would never see Richard and how did you film the phone interactions to make them flow but also have that halted, getting to know each other nature?
There were versions of the script where you’d see parts of him, maybe an ear listening, but we ultimately thought it gave away his intentions and it was more suspenseful if you never saw him. Ultimately, we felt it worked much better staying grounded in Sally’s point of view, where Richard lives in her imagination through his voice. Nathan, our incredible actor who played Richard, was stuck in another room of the house, waiting for us to call. It could be a long time between takes or setups, and he would just have to wait alone. Afterwards he said it helped him get into character, as the character Richard would probably be in the same situation.
Was it an obvious choice to shoot on film and how did this affect the shoot?
It was. We always try to shoot on film because not only does it look amazing, but it requires us to approach things more deliberately since we could only afford a limited supply of film stock. We had to strip down our shot list and this constraint ended up sparking more creativity.
I like writing women who have the capacity to do bad things, giving them the power to follow their deviant impulses.
Lucy, I really enjoyed the way your performance took us through her highs and lows, while also always offering us a cheeky glimpse of what’s to come. Could you tell us about embodying Sally?
Sally is an emotionally volatile character. She goes through a lot of highs and lows in a very short amount of time. She’s unstable and lonely and desperate, holding onto this thread of romantic hope in Richard, and letting that feeling sweep her up into a state of manic euphoria. But she’s not all feeling either, she’s also thinking and calculating. It was interesting to track what she knows and when, and how that would affect her real-world behaviour, as opposed to her fantasies. She knows more than we think she does early on, but that doesn’t stop her from engaging with this scammer, so it was interesting playing with that.
What are you working on next?
Hopefully shooting a feature very soon!
