If films and TV series have taught us anything, it is to be wary of the manicured perfection of American suburbs – the pristine lawns and picket fences can mask a darkness that lurks beneath its immaculate facade. Flattened, a psychological curiosity from co-directors Julia Godfrey and Will Abbott, occupies a delightfully disorienting space amongst these ticky-tacky little boxes through deliberate, meticulous precision, with the directorial duo having crafted a surreal descent into the aftermath of a traumatic incident that unfolds over 24 hours in a picture-perfect neighbourhood. What began as pandemic writing sessions between Abbott and childhood friends Hannah Levy and Grace Westlin, who also star in the film, evolved into a deeply strange immersion into suburban performativity where nods to the uncanny occupy every space, and you are captivated as a fly on the wall witness to the pair’s unravelling. Flattened is a testament to how independent filmmaking constraints can be transformed into creative strengths when wielded by filmmakers with a clear, compelling vision. We sat down with Godfrey and Abbott ahead of today’s online premiere to talk about paring a feature-length script down to five pages for the short, the effect of opting to only include minimal dialogue and building their artificial, inherently fake world into every element of the production.
What drew you to the world of false lives lived behind picket fences?
Will Abbot: I started writing Flattened during the pandemic with Hannah Levy and Grace Westlin, who also star in the short. We bubbled up and gathered during our evenings for movie nights. We quickly realized we were drawn to the same films, works that, sadly, we felt weren’t really being made anymore. With lots of time on our hands and a desire to escape the confines of our rooms, our movie nights evolved into free-writing sessions. We originally conceived it as a feature-length script, but it was a pretty ambitious project and we knew we couldn’t make it on our own. We decided to adapt five pages into a short film and shared our script with a few trusted friends, including our eventual co-director, Julia.
Flattened gives me all kinds of vibes! Could you elaborate on those formative film influences that you felt weren’t being made anymore and why those types of filmmaking drew you in?
WA: We watched so many different films throughout our writing process. What really inspired us was how certain movies told their stories and created rich and lived-in worlds. We loved the suburban facade of The Swimmer. Sharp Objects, and how it trusted the audience to piece together what was beneath the surface. Y tu mamá también and its exploration of friendship. We were also drawn to Alexander Payne’s films and his ability to tell grounded stories with a sense of play. We felt most inspired by filmmakers who told their stories in inventive ways, rather than one vibe in particular.
What specific challenges did you face in distilling the essence of your feature script into a short film format?
WA: Adapting our script into a short was definitely a huge challenge. The more we tried to squeeze different parts of our feature into the script, the crazier and less cohesive it felt. Eventually, we realized simpler is better. We couldn’t tell our feature’s story in ten minutes, and trying to fit in all its exposition felt clunky. We decided to essentially show a day in the world of our protagonists, following a pivotal moment in their lives. Flattened isn’t a distillation of the feature, but rather a depiction of the catalyzing event that propels the feature into motion.
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In both the short and feature, our characters exist in a heightened state of panic. They’re trying their very best to act normal in an absurdly pacifying environment. However, our feature is set four years in the future. When Molly and Ruth return home post-college, and are forced to confront their past, discovering the man they hit with their car is not only alive, but also running to be Toledo’s next Mayor.
We wanted this lack of dialogue to almost function as a third, omni-present and omni-threatening presence.
Why did you choose to make the film largely dialogue-free?
Julia Godfrey: Flattened explores this central tension between the surface world (and its temptations, facades, and illusions) and the subterranean, darker world beneath it. We felt the omission of dialogue, or the absence of confession, would really help support this tension… We wanted this lack of dialogue to almost function as a third, omnipresent and omni-threatening presence. And we also wanted the audience to really have to sit with the atmosphere and energy between Molly and Ruth – to recognize that so much of their reality and relationship is predicated on withholding and silencing.
Judging from the photo collages, clothes and music, we’re solidly in the late 90s. I want to know about your production design, the music choices and putting us right into an illusion of suburban perfection where facade is everything.
WA: It was important to us that the feature take place in the late 90s/early 2000s, a time when the world was rapidly changing. The period’s presence of media but lack of connecting technology lent itself to the short and made Molly and Ruth’s lives feel even more insular. We filmed in Ottawa Hills, a small village in Toledo, Ohio, with an undeniably timeless American feel. The owners of the house we primarily shot in had lived there for over forty years, and let us use lots of furniture and props they had kept from the 90s. The neighbourhood was super tight-knit, and helped us throughout the process. They gave us a lot of the knick-knacks that adorn Molly’s room, and the big purple van the girls drive. Toledo also had amazing thrift shops and estate sales that were full of gems.
Having the world feel almost disorientingly cohesive was important. We wanted their neighborhood to feel impossibly picturesque. While there’s beauty in all of it, the landscape also becomes suffocating as the story escalates. It’s an interesting dynamic to explore because the environment can feel like paradise or a complete nightmare.
The set design, costumes, lighting and color palette are all intended to feel artificial.
Again, looking at the nostalgic time period, how did this influence your cinematography and the colour process in post to go back to that almost fake world?
JG: We really wanted the cinematography to capture the essence of the early 2000s, and specifically the early 2000s depicted in American rom-coms. We wanted to lean into a visual world that felt idyllic and inherently fake. The set design, costumes, lighting and color palette are all intended to feel artificial. In post, we wanted the color process to exaggerate this even more. High contrast, bright whites, magenta and pastel hues. We wanted the natural light outside, even, to feel artificial. Nostalgia is inherently deceptive because it rewrites so much of a time and place, and we wanted our visuals to not just mirror that but to expose it.
This was a small, truly independent production. How did the equipment you had available also shape the film’s aesthetic?
JG: Our crew was super small, six people total. We shot for one week in Toledo, Ohio, using a Canon C70 with a set of Atlas Orion anamorphic lenses. Transparency in filmmaking (especially independent, extremely low-budget filmmaking) is extremely important to us. We shot on a Canon C70 because I already owned it and was familiar with it. We wanted to save our budget for the lens, and we had our hearts set on the Atlas Orion anamorphic.
The Atlas Orion produces such beautiful, dream-like images. It captures light and dimensionality in such a rich and dense way. We knew our lens needed to support this theatrical and intense visual world. I was particularly drawn to shooting with an anamorphic lens because anamorphic lenses play an interesting trick on the eye: in some ways, we are seeing so much more of a landscape or visual than we are used to seeing. Things feel expansive and exposed. But at the same time, we are losing so much of the image above and below. We are still being filtered, just in a way that can sometimes disguise itself. This felt really important in shaping a world built on deception and illusion.
From the start, we hoped to signal that something was off, without explicitly spelling out what happened, and then watch these characters suppress the truth as it’s screaming to come out.
The narrative focuses on the 24 hours following a traumatic incident. What techniques did you employ to maintain tension while portraying this compressed timeframe, and how did you lock in the pace and rhythm of the film in your edit?
WA: It was important that it felt like there was an internal storm escalating in both characters. Molly and Ruth are trying their best to act normal, throwing themselves into aggressively mundane activities. However, not only is it impossible to behave ‘normally’ in their situation – it’s the last thing they should be trying to do. From the start, we hoped to signal that something was off, without explicitly spelling out what happened, and then watch these characters suppress the truth as it’s screaming to come out. They could have spent the day together, but the idea of having to be with each other becomes an unbearable reminder of the reality they’re trying to forget.
In terms of editing, we wanted the audience to feel like a fly on the wall, and let Hannah and Grace’s performances show us what’s behind the facade. It was also fun to leave little auditory and visual breadcrumbs for the audience to piece together.
I was so drawn to those amazing moments in the car where we are just staring into their ashened faces?
JG: We shot that really late at night, using the only light we used for the entirety of this film: an aperture that I already had in my kit. We aimed the light at the window. We didn’t want the light to feel like natural moonlight. We wanted it to feel artificial and jarring, almost like a spotlight or flashlight was being aimed directly at Ruth and Molly, as if in an interrogation. From a directing perspective, we wanted to bring the actors into a place of total shock and horror. We sat with them for a long time, guiding them into this place, and allowed them to follow their own instincts in front of the camera. They both so brilliantly dropped into that space, and it felt really exciting to capture.
How did working as such a small, condensed team affect your production?
JG: We were such a teeny, tiny team! This affected every aspect of our production, as every single one of us were wearing multiple hats and fulfilling multiple roles. This can be really challenging, especially when on a super tight budget, because everyone has a lot of work and little time to complete it. But the flip side of this is that we really all had total creative freedom and could truly express our vision in the way we wanted to. We each got to touch every aspect of the film, and we got to support each other in ways we wouldn’t have been able to on a traditional set. I think we all learned so much about honest and kind collaboration, as well as the labor and technicality that goes into other roles on set. It was a lot of work, but if given the chance, we would do it all over again.
With Hannah Levy and Grace Westlin being both co-writers and stars, how did their dual roles inform the development of their characters and the overall creative process?
WA: When we began writing, we wanted to explore a long-term friendship: people who have known each other for so long and watched each other grow, and the secrets they share. There’s a real bond in having a secret with someone that can simultaneously feel so isolating. Hannah and Grace are childhood friends who have known each other for over fifteen years, so it felt natural to center these characters around them. Our process started as a series of freewrites, developing their characters and backgrounds. As we learned more about their lives, the story began to present itself to us. Hannah and Grace brought so much of themselves to these characters, but also understood what their differences were. When it came time to shoot, for them, it was really just a process of trusting that they had already done all the work.
What are you both working on next?
JG: I wrote and directed a film called Hands Are Wings, and we are currently in post-production! We shot the film in Idaho on 35mm film with a truly incredible cast and crew. Grace Westlin stars in the film, and Will Abbott edited the film. I’m really excited for its eventual release and am so grateful to have had the opportunity to collaborate with both Grace and Will again.
WA: I’m currently applying for grants for a script I wrote called Tex. I also just acted in a short called Decoy Persona, written and directed by Joe Blaugrund. I’ll be directing another short written by and starring Grace Westlin. It’s currently under the working title Spiderman… but I have a feeling the title will have to change.
