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The best scene inThe Nesttakes place in a luxe London restaurant that the main characters cant really afford.
But more than that, its about the relationship between two people caught between eras and expectations.
Neither Rory nor Allison actually comes from the kind of money they pretend to have always been around.
Its a bit of a game; they know how to play it together.
I felt that those scenes lent a sense of history to the relationship.
It was one of the wackier 80s sets, even though its still tasteful in the film.
I remember walking into the set and feeling really transported, which was helpful.
Durkin: Yeah, it was the only time we embraced the louder side of the 80s, really.
We imagined it being a new restaurant that maybe didnt last very long.
The smoking serves as a way of channeling Allisons energy throughout the film.
I grew up in a house with two parents who smoked inside.
So if youre going to make a film in the 80s, it felt essential to us.
Thats where I felt most like I was one of those old-school movie stars.
Durkin: It was just a huge part of that time.
My mother, my sister, my aunt there was just a nonstop cloud of smoke.
My dad smoked cigars.
I got ridiculed for being bothered by it.
Coon:Yes, me, too!
I will say, it affects the rhythm of the scene.
Almost every beat you see onscreen is scripted.
Theres a lot of patience actually, at the top of the scene.
Theres a complicated play of power dynamics in this scene.
But he also loves that she is this way.
That was really important to get across, that there is that conflict within them.
He wants her to be [the trophy wife].
But he also loves the fact that shes doing this.
Coon: He would have been bored with a woman who just played the part.
And Jude has that small smile in the end.
A lot of that stems from Rory.
Hes so concerned with not being in the place he came from that he doesnt know who he is.
Coon: And Allisons more grounded, but shes very enrolled in this aspiration as well.
Its very easy to be seduced by a dream.
You also get the sense of how much Allisons caught between two generations with different ideas about gender roles.
Her mother tells her, Its not your job to worry; leave that to your husband.
Her teenage daughter taunts her about letting men make decisions for her.
And yet she was expected to dress up and wear makeup every day.
She wore makeup when she was in hospice.
As a woman, I saw those contradictions existing in her.
To know that this powerful woman was still struggling to say no was shocking and illuminating.
Were taught that were going to disappoint people.
To see a woman who has ambition and skills trapped in that same convention felt very truthful to me.
To read the entire scene as it was conceived by Durkin, check outthe scriptbelow.
The dinner scene begins on page 48.
