Since there is already an excellent review of the film and the brothers Edgerton on this site this review will be brief and not talk much about what's already been covered.

On Saturday night at the Regency Theater, I got the distinct pleasure of meeting Nash Edgerton, director and producer of "The Square" and short film, "Spider."  Nash was personable and accessible.  He is totally without pretense.  What you see is what you get and that's already pretty special since his body of work shows a filmmaker who is in touch with exactly what he wants. 

Nash and I got a chance to talk a little before the Q&A at a restaurant near the theater.  I found him thoughtful but as mentioned, he was straight ahead with his ideas and ideals about film.  Even though this is his first feature, he's been working in the business as a director, stunt person, producer and actor for over 20 years.  He's vetted and a veteran of many years of being in the trenches both here in Hollywood and in Aussie Land.  This leads to him being down-to-earth and realistic about his work.  It also gives him a level of skill not normally seen in 1st-time feature directors.  He moves the camera with the best of them and gets terrific performaces out of his actors - the result of doing, learning and absorbing from working as a stuntman on some pretty good features.

Joel Edgerton, Nash's brother, wrote the script (and has a pivotal role in the film) and then Nash and he tweaked it.  According to Nash during the Q&A, the ending was completely different than the stunner we see now.  He wasn't happy with the original ending so he and Joel worked out a different one - a much more existential ending.  All of Nash's work seems this way - very human, naturalistic.

Script in hand and in shape, Nash took a camera and crew and made it real using a crew and people that Nash had worked with over the years.  We unfortunately didn't get too much into the hows and whys of the production - someone in the audience derailed the Q&A a bit with a rather dopey comment  - but the film itself was less than 2 million (American) in budget - less than the salaries of most lead actors.

The movie itself is filled with sly and distracting moments.  Just when you think you know what's going on, trust me you don't.  This tells me that these veterans of the film world are both fans who have a deep appreciation of what's come before them, but also a distinct sense of how to break out of that repetitive Hollywood paradigm.  Nash mentioned "Jaws" as being one of his favorite films and one scene in the movie in particular lends credence to that notion.

The audience who stayed (most everyone) after the feature to listen to the Q&A was very receptive to both the movie and Nash.  I was in the theater when this particular event happened in the movie - a real shocker moment - and everyone to a person made a vocal exclamation when it happened - that told me that everyone there was on the same page - pages that Nash designed specifically knowing what effect it would have.  

The entire film is done that way - deliberate and with precise knowledge about what a person watching would be expecting - then the story goes in a completely different direction than you expect.  Nash said "The affair isn't this amazingly romatic and intense thing.  It's like real affairs - sort of mundane but sprinkled with both intensely good and bad moments."  Nash directs with real people in mind - how would Joe Everyman act.

This tone infuses the production with an amazing vercacity.  You're rarely out of the moment.  What happens happens because it feels organic to the story, not because it "had" to.

This is a serious and creative filmmaker who appears to be building a group of talented film people around him, including his multi-talented brother, Joel.  Check out bluetonguefilms.com (here) as well as Apparition Films, the distributor who seems very capable of recognizing talent.

I wish we had had more time with Nash in the theater so we could really explore his attitudes toward film but there was another showing coming up and we were only able to talk to him as an audience for a short time.  I had the feeling that we could have gone hours and Nash would have been as amiable, funny and interesting no matter how long a time it was.

Thanks to Vicky Eguia from Apparition and Larry Porricelli from The Regency Theater for helping with all the arrangements that lead to last night's showing and a most insightful Q&A.