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Pregnant Pause

PREGGOLAND directed by Jacob Tierney, written by Sonja Bennett, with Bennett, Paul Campbell and James Caan. 109 minutes. A Mongrel Media release. Opens Friday (May 1). See listing.


I can tell that this is Sonja Bennett’s first interview for Preggoland. The film’s writer and star hasn’t mastered the art of the stock answer, pausing during our conversation at last year’s TIFF to think before answering and then measuring her words carefully.

That is, until I ask about Danny Trejo. He plays a Hispanic friend who helps Bennett’s protagonist, Ruth, maintain the fiction that she’s pregnant. Did you wonder, I ask, whether Trejo was getting too close to stereotype?

She barely lets me finish the question, jumping in and hollering, “That was him! He added all that stuff. That ‘Si señor,’ that wasn’t in my script. He’s doing all this stuff, and I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m gonna look like a racist asshole.’”

Not that the narrative is laced with stock characters. In her story about 30-something Ruth, who’s not interested in having kids and is alienating her child-happy friends, Bennett avoids the temptation to mock new mothers. Preggoland is her first screenplay – she’s better known as an actor (Young People Fucking) – so it took a while for her to figure out how to handle the script’s challenges.

“In my first draft, Ruth was more of a wallflower than a man-child. So when she gets dumped by her friends, those characters were thought to be too mean, too bitchy.”

Bennett decided  to make Ruth the problematic character, so the women would have a reason to exile their old pal other than the fact that she was childless.

She got the idea for Preggoland while she was crossing the street – literally. She used to jaywalk to her favourite coffee shop, and drivers would honk their horns and call out abusively.

“One day I was crossing and all these cars started screeching to a halt. I was just about to show [my pregnancy], and I realized that when you’re pregnant, you’re treated like a god.”

That got her writing about a woman who’d rather party than become a parent. Ruth’s dad – played by James Caan, who made a huge contribution to the project – has always favoured her successful sister. 

She frankly describes Caan as “a glorious pain in the ass. He had some concerns with his character that I needed to address before he agreed to do the part. He’s smart, he knows story, and everything he said was right. 

“I was so focused on the female characters that I forgot about the male characters. He pushed me, and the movie is better for it.”

Bennett doesn’t just accept critical feedback – she’s almost entirely without vanity. Though she’s pretty well put together to meet her TIFF obligations, she looks awful on screen.

“I don’t have a problem that – that was Jacob’s [director Tierney] idea. I am hung over or drunk for the first third of the movie and I wanted Ruth to stand apart from the suburban women. And I wanted to make sure it was clear that growing up doesn’t mean you automatically stop wearing too much eye makeup.”   

More on Director Jacob Tierney:

More Sonja Bennett on why her character always looks awful in Preggoland:

susanc@nowtoronto.com | @susangcole

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