Featurette! Corey Ann Haydu + Love Me If You Dare

This new feature was inspired by the Corey Ann Haydu book launch party I went to last month (which is why she's the first author I'm featuring!). She was talking about what inspired her to write LIFE BY COMMITTEE and much to my surprise, she mentioned the movie Love Me If You Dare. And I won't lie, I literally sat up straight in my chair, eyes wide in shock because..

NO ONE KNOWS THIS MOVIE.

At least, that's what it feels like to me. I've made a few friends watch it but I don't know anyone else who loves it as much as I do. It made me think of other movies I love, which is a pretty random mix. And I thought it would be fun to reach out to authors who love or whose book was inspired by one of my favorite movies. And that's how Featurette! was born.

So back to Love Me If You Dare. The first time I watched it was in college, when I was all about the indie and French films. It's about two childhood friends who begin a game of dares to help them deal with life. But what starts off as fun pranks turns into something darker and more dangerous the older they get. I remember when I reached the end of the movie, I didn't know how to feel about it. It was unlike anything I had ever watched before. I loved the cinematography, the characters for all their craziness and flaws and the unpredictable, passionate nature of their relationship. But the ending was so ambiguous! A day later, I realized that ambiguity was part of what made it so great. It's up to your interpretation. And it's been one of my favorite movies ever since.

Now, Corey is going to tell us why she loves the movie and how it inspired her!

***

I first watched Love Me If You Dare years ago, when my family still lived in my childhood home and when I was still in college and when I had already fallen in love with my first French film, Amelie, but wanted something darker and curious-er and about a less beautiful kind of love.

Or a different kind of beautiful.

I am interested in that other kind of beautiful. 

Love Me If You Dare is probably my favorite film of all time (with Gone With the Wind, When Harry Met Sally, and Fight Club coming in next because I am nothing if not unpredictable and all over the place). The film is about childhood friends—a boy and a girl—who start a game of daring each other to do fun or destructive things. The dares grow as they get older, and what was once fun and wild because dangerous and terrible and catastrophic. It’s maybe a film deserving of its own genre: Emotional Thriller. The thrills, the ups and downs, are both tangible and interior, and that’s what really inspired me about the film. Both its intense shape—a descent into something that grows chaotic—and its unique genre—emotionally uncomfortable, psychologically disturbing, with both interior and exterior on obstacles.

It is itself. 

I love that.

LIFE BY COMMITTEE is not Love Me If You Dare. I can’t do that beautiful French thing, no matter how hard I try, and the “dares” that happen in my novel are taken because of a more cult-like pull. Love Me If You Dare is about a magnetic pull of one person, and LIFE BY COMMITTEE is about the magnetic pull of a group of people. I loved taking the seed of inspiration from the film and finding my own aspect to explore. I wanted the descent, and I think I got it. I wanted the unstoppable saying yes to danger, and I think I got that too. 

Love Me If You Dare pushed me to write a more plot-heavy book. It also pushed me to ask why. To understand why people get pushed beyond their comfort zones, and how to make the believable. I understood something about structure and the beauty of inevitability when I saw that film, and I hope LIFE BY COMMITTEE captures a tiny corner of that.

***

Thank you Corey for stopping by the blog today! 

I hope we convinced you to check out this movie! 

More about the movie here. 

More about Corey's awesome book here.

And with that, here's one of my favorite lines from the movie:

(P.S. I really hope you guys liked the new feature! I already have two other author/movie pairings in mind. But some of my other favorite movies include: Almost Famous, Once, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Two For the Road, Labyrinth, Strictly Ballroom, Little Mermaid and Empire Records. If you know of any authors who love these movies too, please email or tweet me! Thanks!)