Douglas Copeland's New Movie

[LJFH]

Enter Douglas Coupland, screenwriter.

The breezy novelist - who recently brought the ire of the publishing community for bemoaning the state of CanLit - is bringing his trademark kooky wit to the big screen with his first produced screenplay.

Like most of Coupland's novels, Everything's Gone Green is a dry comedy that follows the travails of a likeable nearly-30 slacker.

It stars the Brampton, Ont.-born actor Paolo Costanzo (Michael on NBC's Joey) as Ryan - a thoughtful but aimless wastrel who loses his girlfriend and his job and finds himself tempted by a money-laundering scheme.

Saskatoon's Steph Song plays the captivating love interest Ming, who's complicity in the questionable business of her boyfriend, played by Vancouver's JR Bourne, brings to the fore her own greed and shallowness.

For West Coast writer Coupland, the film's real star is Vancouver.

"Obviously, we make, like, a million things here that are set in Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, whatever, but we never seem to actually make anything set here. (The screenplay) took a lot of the city's idiosyncrasies and sort of wove them into the plot," he says.

"The dominance of pot culture, Asian culture, real estate culture, obviously the weather and eco-tourism and film and TV."

He says he wrote the screenplay about eight years ago, at the bidding of a filmmaker friend who bemoaned the lack of local material.

"I kind of wrote it as a lark, which is probably why it's filmable. I think if I'd actually like, went out and bought one of those scriptwriting books or something, it probably would have turned into a big disaster," he says laughing.

"Like, 'Oh, is there a through line? Where's my character's arc?' " he says, assuming a dumb-guy voice.

"This will sound crusty and ancient," continues Coupland, who at age 44 still peppers his speech with "whatever", "like" and "or something".

"My problem with a lot of recent movies is that...nobody sneezes without somehow that being connected to the plot or someone can't just eat a popsicle, the popsicle has to have a bomb in it.... I just wanted to design something that wasn't just ruthlessly efficient."

The rant is reminiscent of Coupland's incendiary essay published in the online edition of the New York Times last month. In it, he charged that government support for Canadian literature was anti-urban and anti-modern and that entrenched, aging authors suck up all the attention.

The comments drew immediate rebuttals from several in the book industry, but Coupland says he stands by his comments.

"Almost all my books take place in suburbia and suburbia is not allowed in CanLit, therefore I'm out," he says, refusing to elaborate.

"Don't let other people make up your mind for you, write about what you enjoy writing about," he offered as advice to young writers.

As for his perspective on Canadian film, Coupland says he's much more optimistic.

"Canadian films are actually in a much better space right now, because of all these weird things like Telefilm and blah blah blah that you do actually get far more meandering plots. You might not get a blockbuster but I think you're going to get these two-hour events which do take your mind and soul to a place you've probably never been before."

He says he's less cynical now than he was before his movie foray, but Coupland is not ready for a career change.

"Thank God I've got other things going on in my life, 'cause sitting around waiting for a film to be made would just be the most soul-crushing, depressing, bittering experience unless you had other things on the go."

Everything's Gone Green makes its world premiere this week at the Toronto International Film Festival and opens in the rest of the country in late October.

[AdamH]

Read J-Pod. It's a good time

[Im going home Donny]

ha...still trying to forget Girlfriend in a coma...uhhhg, shudder.....well I guess I liked it lots till about half way through then I started skipping pages and then the ending was jut so pukerific for my tastes.

Still I'm a fan and looking forward to checking out his flick! Thanks for the heads, up-seven up.

Gunna check out jpod too once I've shooken off GFIAC.

[LJFH]

J-pod was good. I enjoyed it. He's weird, but good.

[McL]

ha...still trying to forget Girlfriend in a coma...uhhhg, shudder.....well I guess I liked it lots till about half way through then I started skipping pages and then the ending was jut so pukerific for my tastes.

whoa.

all of my friends who I've loaned the book over the years have tended to go through it in under a week and love it. It's such a different style of fiction. I thought he did an excellent job at writing a captivating and abstract novel, yet still bring his Coupland-isms to the table.

Life After God is my favorite, still.

very excited about seeing this movie. (and to finally cracking open Jpod which has been sitting bedside for the last month)