'Lovely, Dark, And Deep' Movie Q&A: Teresa Sutherland and Alexandra Amick At Beyond Fest

Teresa Sutherland’s beautiful feature directorial debut Lovely, Dark, and Deep movie was made in three weeks, she says, thanks in no small part to the brilliant acting of Georgina Campbell (Barbarian). The movie follows Lennon (Campbell), a new back-country park ranger, as she braves the wilderness alone, while grappling with a traumatic incident that has haunted her since she was a child.

The idea came to Sutherland while in isolation thanks to the pandemic, as well as some gnarly morning sickness. “I’m a creep,” she joked during a Q&A following a Beyond Fest screening of the film, explaining that she had spent a lot of time reading about people going missing in national parks. The title comes from the Robert Frost poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” which features the lines, “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.”

Sutherland admitted she won’t start a script until she has a title, and “Lovely, Dark, and Deep” just seemed to work perfectly. “This kind of fits into the story I want to tell. And so lovely, dark and deep went on the top page, and I feel like it just sort of interwove itself from there into all of it,” she said.

Lovely, Dark, and Deep was a labor of love, with editor Alexandra Amick joking, “I think a rough cut at one point was mostly you and I in the backyard. That's how it goes.” To which Sutherland noted, “You can make blood out of cayenne and honey, and it'll do in a pinch.” However, you cannot tell at all from the cinematography. This film is absolutely, breathlessly stunning.

Read on below for more insight into the film, like the meaning of the deer, the location inspiration, and what it was like filming a movie that is so dark. Note: There are spoilers for Lovely, Dark, and Deep below.

How did Georgina Campbell get involved?

Teresa Sutherland: Georgina and I spoke, and she's like, 'I really like the story. I like the character.' I had seen her in a Black Mirror episode, because this was before Barbarian, and I thought she was just so grounded and so realistic in what she was doing, and that's exactly what I wanted for Lennon. And I told her she needs to feel like a real person. She needs to feel like she's somebody you know, so we can go in these weird and crazy places, and kind of believe it with her. And she was on board, got to Portugal, we talked for a little bit more, and then she showed up and killed it every single day.

I always just kind of let her go, and then we'd talk if I felt like there was something that needed redirecting, which, she's just incredible. For example, when she answers James at the end, that quiet ‘no’ was not at all what I had in my mind, but that's just what she did the first take. And I was like, 'Oh my God. Okay, let's do that.'

How did you choose the locations in Portugal?

TS: I had this California mountainous rocky vibe in my head. And when QWGmire said we're going to make this movie, they were like, we've got this location in upstate New York. And I was like, that's not what's in my head, but I'm going to make this movie. We'll make it work. And then Josh [C. Waller] came aboard, and he's like, I'm going to send you some pictures. And he did. And it was just all of that, and it was stunning and gorgeous. And I was like, this looks like California. This feels like California. When you're there, it smells like California. This place just feels like home.

This movie is so dark. Was that an issue during filming? How did you approach that?

TS: Our cinematographer, Rui Poças, one of the first conversations we had, he was just like, 'Teresa, where are the lights in this movie?' So all of our nighttime lighting is based off the moon and flashlights. And Rui took that very, very, very seriously. So in some scenes, there's maybe one light on a stand really far back, and then he's just got eight flashlights and bounce boards, just trying to funnel everything in.

When Lennon is by the tent, not her ranger station, the orange tent, that was so dark that night, it was so hard to see it. And we just kept checking each other, being like, ‘I can see her eyes. That's really all we need, right? We want it to be dark.’ But, yeah, it was very challenging, but not, and this is me, the director, not me the DP talking, not as challenging as I thought it would be.

Alexandra Amick: I don't think there were any shots in the edit where I was like, we can't use this. It’s too dark. They did a good job.

Georgina Campbell in Lovely, Dark, and Deep

How did you approach the editing?

AA: It was a unique experience. Normally, I'm involved while it's being shot, and so I'm being fed footage. I get it a bit out of order, as they shoot three hours here, three hours there, whatever scene they need to. But I was brought on after it was all shot, and I was just handed it in order, which is never how it is. And so it was a really unique experience to start at scene one and end it. But it was fun for me to then mess it up as if I had received it in all different pieces.

I think the way that Teresa writes scripts is pretty informative of how I approach the edit. She melds that in her script. It's there, but then it's also, I don't know if you can tell, it's vague. It is up to interpretation in the script. It's up to interpretation when you watch it. And so she kind of just let me go with it.

She wrote that these two things kind of flow together; the searching for Jenny, the searching for Sarah, and then I just went with it. And then Teresa and I worked really hard on when the right times to go back were in the edit, to plant some seeds to make sure that we were giving the audience enough that you could kind of track where Lennon was going, why she was there, and all of that. And that moved around throughout.

Did you find anything in the edit that really stood out to you?

AA: My favorite thing that we discovered in the edit was the searching montage, when Lennon is marking off of her map, and we're kind of just sinking further into her. She's searching, who is she searching for? Her sister she can't find - that obsession. And we really finally get there, and it was just a shot of shoe. Then Lennon sitting in another field. You know, and then the two of us working together and really bringing emotion to that, I think was very rewarding.

What is the meaning of the deer you see throughout the film?

TS: I never do this, but I will do this, because, usually I never explain myself. But because I feel like it is there, eventually, if you watch it a million times, you'll probably find it. But it symbolizes her mother, and that's why she's in the casket, the deer. It's her mother's funeral. And, for me, the deer was always the opportunity to turn back, to turn away, like a mother would want you to. Don't go there.

Read my review of Lovely, Dark, and Deep, here.