“We all have, at some point, a feeling that everything we’ve depended on we can’t depend on anymore. And when that happens, the only thing we have left is love,” says Oscar-winning director James L. Brooks. “You can think your life is terrible, and then he or she walks in and it’s not terrible anymore. That’s it – love is our saving grace.”
“How Do You Know” is a comedy about people in transition. Lisa’s (Reese Witherspoon) athletic ability is the defining passion of her life, having been her focus since early childhood. When she is cut from her team, everything she has ever known is suddenly taken from her. George (Paul Rudd) is a straight-arrow businessman who is accused of a financial crime, even though he’s done nothing wrong. Although he may be headed to jail, George’s honesty, integrity, and unceasing optimism may be his only path to keeping his sanity. George and Lisa meet on the worst day of each of their lives: she has just been cut, and he has just been served. When everything else seems to be falling apart, they will discover what it means to have something wonderful happen.
Brooks says that the project began simply. “I was driving by some ball fields, soccer fields, and filled with women and girls, all ages, and I thought, it’s been a while since we’ve seen a female jock heroine. And I’m a research nut, so that started me on a year of talking to great female athletes.”
“There’s maybe five minutes of softball in the movie, but it informs Lisa’s whole character,” says Brooks. “I have a rule in research: the third time I hear something, it’s generally true. This time, every female athlete I spoke to said that it takes another athlete to understand how much time they have to give to their sport. They can’t go out, they can’t go to the party, because they’re playing, they’re honing their skills. It’s very hard for a man to understand that if he doesn’t share it.”
“Jim’s voice is unique,” says producer Julie Ansell, who has been Brooks’ producing partner for 20 years. “He has insights into people – when he writes something that touches on something you’ve experienced in your own life, you think, ‘That’s it – I couldn’t have put it into words, but that’s how I felt.’ It hits you deep inside.”
“He writes about real people, real dilemmas they face,” shares producer Paula Weinstein. “His characters are complicated, difficult, confused, human, flawed, funny, and true. Watching his movies is like reading a great novel that you don’t want to end – you just want to stay in their world a little while more.”
“No one writes dialogue the way he does,” Ansell continues. “He wants to get into his characters so deeply that sometimes we spend two years doing research, talking to hundreds of people for each character.”
“Jim gets an idea for his characters, then he wants to find out what’s real, what’s true,” concludes Weinstein.
Opening soon across the Philippines, “How Do You Know” is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International.
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