Every once in a while you see a tiny little film that so delights you with its charm that you get emotionally invested in whether it ever ends up seeing the light of day. I first saw Laura Colella’s Breakfast with Curtis at last year’s Los Angeles Film Festival and was blown away by its simple but winning premise. Frustrated by her attempts to get funding for another script she had written, filmmaker/film professor Colella started thinking about how she could make a movie with virtually no budget at all. For the past 15 years, Colella has lived in an eclectic three-story house in Providence, Rhode Island, dubbed the “Purple Citadel.” She approached the three families who lived in the house along with a related family next door and proposed the idea of having them appear in a fictional film loosely based on their lives. They decided to give it a go. The fact that most of these folks weren’t actors and had never stepped foot in front of a camera didn’t faze them a bit.
The resulting film, Breakfast with Curtis, is magical. Colella won the Jameson FIND Your Audience Award at the 2013 Independent Spirit Awards and the film has been an audience favorite at film festivals around the world. Almost everyone who’s seen the film (myself included) has stated their desire to head to Rhode Island to visit the Purple Citadel and enjoy some cocktails and conversation in the backyard with the cast. Director Paul Thomas Anderson so fell in love with the film that he hosted a special screening of it in Los Angeles earlier this year.
I’ve seen Breakfast with Curtis three times now and look forward to seeing it again now that it’s getting a much-deserved theatrical release. I interviewed Laura Colella and the cast after I first saw the film last year and was so charmed by the group that I broke every journalist boundary and invited the lot of them to my house the following morning for breakfast with my family. They came — and were every bit as delightful in real life as they are on the screen.
The plot of Breakfast with Curtis is deceptively simple but packs a big emotional wallop. Syd (Theo Green) is an eccentric bookseller with delusions of grandeur. After Syd gets into an argument with Curtis (Gideon Parker), the young boy who lives next door, a huge rift develops between the two families. Five years later, with tensions still in the air, Syd asks Curtis (now played by Jonah Parker), who has become a shy, introverted teen, to help him with a video project. The reluctant boy ultimately agrees and shows remarkable creativity and skill. Gradually, as Curtis emerges from his shell, old wounds begin to heal. Past connections between the different characters are revealed, new ones are sparked and the power of community brings welcome changes for everyone. The film also stars David Parker and Virginia Laffey (Jonah and Gideon’s real-life parents), Adele Parker (David’s sister), Yvonne Parker (David and Adele’s mother), Aaron Jungels and Colella herself.
Take a look at the new trailer for the film:
‘Breakfast With Curtis’ Trailer from The Playlist on Vimeo.
Breakfast with Curtis, distributed by Bond/360 and Abramorama, will open in New York on December 4, 2013, with other cities to follow.