Throughout the ages women have been forced to make themselves smaller, more demure and slot themselves into a male-dominated world but what happens when this behaviour takes place under the watchful eye of another? Hazel McKibbin’s sophomore film, She Always Wins, made during her MFA at Columbia University follows what should be a joyous occasion as sisters reunite with a new boyfriend in tow to celebrate the burgeoning new relationship under a hazy, languorous summer’s day. McKibbin immerses us in the tussle played out between this trio as power dynamics shift and morph, and we see the fragility of a male ego rocked by the subtle but overwhelmingly strong bond between the two sisters, crystallized with the introduction of a supposedly innocent table game of backgammon. She Always Wins speaks volumes in the words that are not uttered, drawing its audience into the action plays of micro glances, passive aggressive posturing and heady undertones. McKibbin adopts a strong female gaze to capture each and every single move made in this game within a game and we here at Directors Notes were eager to speak to the British-American writer/director about creating vital powerful but plausible female characters who were rooted in reality, creating her shifting POV through the three protagonists and how she managed to capture all of the outdoor footage in only five hours during relentless British rain.
Please tell us about this nuanced look into toxic masculinity, gender imbalance and that infinitely indescribable relationship between sisters.
I originally wrote the script to be my second year coursework film for my MFA at Columbia. The pandemic delayed our program, so She Always Wins ended up being my thesis film. I based much of it on my experiences of being in a 6 year relationship with someone almost 20 years older than me. I wanted to explore the way that the power dynamics around gender, age, class and level of experience in the relationship shifted around family and that feeling of seeing something more clearly once it was through someone else’s eyes.
Women are constantly forced to adapt to a man’s world but Lola is powerful and for me, the hero of the film. I would love to know more about your motivation as a filmmaker to write and bring to life female characters and the challenges and also joys within.
I write female characters because I base so much of my work on my own experiences and the women I know. Lola, for example, is a version of my sister and I borrow bits and pieces from our own dynamics to build the relationship that she has with Stella. This (I hope) makes these women feel real and helps get to the truth of what a woman’s experience is like, whether as the woman adapting to a man’s world like Stella or defying it like Lola. One of the main challenges is creating active female characters in a world where women being ‘active’ doesn’t look the same as it would for a male character, as women aren’t always able to operate in the same way that men can in our world. It’s always a challenge (a fun one!) to figure out ways to make my female characters active that feels plausible and rooted in reality while still driving the story in a dramatic way.
One of the main challenges is creating active female characters in a world where women being ‘active’ doesn’t look the same as it would for a male character, as women aren’t always able to operate in the same way that men can in our world.
Why did you write the boyfriend as American?
The simple answer is that the boyfriend is American because the man the film is based on is also American. However, given that we were shooting in Wales it definitely would have been easier to cast a British actor. It was important to me that the character stayed American because as a dual national who has lived in both the UK and US, I always found it a little bit difficult to learn the unspoken social rules of each place. It’s difficult to put into words the difference – more just a feeling of not quite speaking the same language. I wanted him to feel out of his element in order to shift the power balance between them and this was an additional way to do that along with her family, the class differences, the game, etc.
Subtext is so important in this film and I thought she would bring so much of it out.
It is very much a performance led piece, tell us about the casting process and what you were looking for in these actors.
We started the casting process with Honor Swinton Byrne. I loved her performance in The Souvenir and our amazing casting director Hannah Marie Williams reached out to her first. Subtext is so important in this film and I thought she would bring so much of it out. Following that, Isabella Thompson brought a cheekiness to Lola’s character that was necessary to bring some levity and reminded me so much of my younger sister in her audition. For Luke’s character, Mercer Boffey brought a little bit of a sharp edge that made the lines more pointed in a way that contradicted his outward appearance and added layers to the character.
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How did you find the right location for this luscious idyll?
We decided to shoot in Snowdonia in Wales because my London school had a property near Porthmadog that they let us use to house the crew. While not currently in use by the school, I had been there on a geography trip in sixth form and remembered it as a possibility. Aesthetically, it is quite institutional and we didn’t want to use it as a picture location, but it gave us a base in the area from which to access the whole region. My mother is an avid wild swimmer so we scouted together all over Snowdonia by using the wild swimming network and testing out each spot. The lake we ultimately filmed was not on our radar initially, but the small swimming hole we had planned to use turned into raging rapids due to the rain around our shoot and we had to pivot.
I can see the story through the three POVs so acutely but you have also managed an observational approach to the filmmaking, how did you strike that balance?
I wanted to begin the film more in Stella’s perspective and move towards a more objective POV as the film progressed. While it’s Stella’s story, so much of it is about how the characters behave with each other when they know they are being observed and I wanted the audience to be able to track each of these through lines.
I created rules for the characters that we tried to honor throughout.
Your framing as they play by the lake brings forth all of the exacting tension and conflict which pulses through the narrative, was the back and forth between characters planned ahead of the shoot or was it something that came together in the edit?
The back and forth by the lake was very planned – the actors knew when they were being observed based on the script and this created an awareness of each other that they could play with. Then we built it into the edit by making sure their gazes connected or just missed each other – depending on the effect. As for framing, I created rules for the characters that we tried to honor throughout: Stella: most access to Stella, we share her POV – progression from most looking room to least. Lola: motivates the camera movement with action and looks. Luke: least access, trapped in the shots.
Alongside the mapped out framing the cinematography plays an enormous part in conveying the emotion of the film.
We used 35mm film as I wanted the image to feel picture perfect and have all the conflict and tension running underneath in the subtext. The underwater footage is from a Blackmagic in a fish tank that we graded to match the film as much as possible. We shot over 3 days in August in a very remote part of Wales where it rained almost every moment of every day. Given that 80% of the film took place outside and we only ended up with 5 hours a day of filming time due to the weather, I cut my shot list in half, filmed very few takes, and we did not film any inserts of the backgammon boards. I knew that we’d never be able to afford to get our actors to recreate these moments in this place, so we favored shooting them and Snowdonia and left the boards for later. These were all captured on a half day pick up shoot in New Jersey in October (hence our split crew!). All of the logistical challenges made it a difficult shoot, but our stellar cast and crew made it possible.
How did you decide what to cut from your shot list as you battled the weather and did anything change because of this?
The scenes in the film are long so I had planned for more shot variation to break them up and create more progression. I’m remembering in particular some French overs that were lost to the weather. We also cut all the shots of the board and then ended up having to do a pick up day as they were so necessary – they were just the easiest thing to do without our actors so they had to be dropped from the first shoot. I tend to overwrite dialogue and then cut it down in the end as I find that you end up needing less than you think you do, but I think more than usual ended up on the cutting room floor because we didn’t have the shot variation to justify keeping it in.
It’s always a challenge (a fun one!) to figure out ways to make my female characters active that feels plausible and rooted in reality while still driving the story in a dramatic way.
The final scene, stark without any diegetic noise or sound, had me silently willing for more, tell us about your ending.
I had always imagined this as the final scene of the film – it was the moment I started with when I wrote the script – a wordless understanding between all three of the characters that the dynamics were forever shifted and the only point in the film where they are all on the same page. However, at one point there was a request for a more clear ending where Stella makes a choice so I wrote it and we shot it! But I thought it made it too clear and preferred for the audience to make their own choice about what their relationship would look like in the future based on their own feelings and experiences.
I hope to see more nuanced female focussed work from you. What are you working on next and how has the making of She Always Wins shaped you as a filmmaker?
I am working on a few projects – always juggling making more shorts so I can keep directing and writing features. There is a feature of She Always Wins – if the short is all the early red flags in the relationship, the feature is 5 years later when it’s all entrenched and going horribly wrong. It’s about domestic violence and why Stella stays in these dynamics for far longer than she should. I’m also working on a psychological thriller called Fractured about a woman with hyperthymesia which means she obsessively remembers everything that has ever happened to her.
