Sarah Kelly’s “Lather Effect” Hits DVD

‘The Lather Effect,’ starring Eric Stoltz, Ione Skye and Tate Donovan, arrives in stores this week. This 2006 ensemble comedy has local appeal in more ways than one, originating with its Palisadian filmmaker, Sarah Kelly. In ‘Lather Effect,’ a group of young marrieds and singletons”essentially, over-the-hill Palisades High students”survive a wild, ’80s-themed house party to spend an extra day together. At a Palisades mansion, they go through a Generation X midlife crisis as they drink, smoke pot poolside at night, play Truth or Dare (to ill effect), and relive their glory days, back when Madonna was queen and ‘Miami Vice’ ruled the airwaves. They also struggle to get over each other (former flames being among them). In the process of wallowing in ’80s nostalgia, Kelly’s film resurrects the Ghosts of Palisades Past. ‘Is that Mort’s Deli?’ becomes a running gag as each character eyes the copious deli spread. One recalls Mort’s Chevy Chase Special, while another quips about her allegiance to ‘Mort’s Deli Turkey Hangover Club.’ Seeing that the Village Pantry recently usurped the local landmark’s space, Mort’s has joined Twisted Sister and the ‘Flashdance’-inspired ripped sweater as a warm memory. When various characters wake up hung-over, the lead (Connie Britton) is dressed as a Madonna wannabe, circa ‘Like a Virgin,’ while Jack (William Mapother) apes the ‘Miami Vice’ look. ‘They wake up in their adolescent mindset and, as the story progresses, they change,’ says Kelly, 38. ‘Tom Cruise, Don Johnson, they’re such icons.’ Eighties staples such as Billy Idol and Blondie make up the robust soundtrack, as does music by Kelly’s younger brother, Dominic Kelly, 35. Donovan plays Britton’s uptight husband, Will, who warns that they must clean up this ‘$2.1-million home to its worth so the new owners don’t default on the escrow.’ When the veteran actor (‘Good Night and Good Luck,’ ‘Friends’) read the script, the role he wanted to inhabit stood out. ‘It was the only one that makes sense to me because I didn’t have any nostalgia for high school,’ Donovan tells the Palisadian-Post. ‘He’s like, ‘Listen, high school wasn’t that great. Now is the best time.” Donovan believes that one does not have to come from the Palisades to relate to ‘Lather”s scenario. ‘I grew up in New Jersey in kind of a similar town,’ Donovan says. ‘Not near the ocean, but it was a similar vibe. There were all these people that had the best time of their lives in high school, but high school for me was miserable. I didn’t really enjoy my life until I got to college.’ Stoltz portrays the off-kilter, 41-year-old eternal party boy. ‘I’ve known him for 20 years,’ Donovan says of Stoltz. ‘He’s probably the best thing in the movie.’ The real party took place off-screen, both in the movie and during the movie shoot. ‘We rented the house that we shot in, and about three doors down, we all inhabited a house,’ Donovan recalls of the 18-day Studio City shoot. ‘We would just hang, it was so much fun.’ While the movie bills itself as a new ‘Big Chill,’ it feels closer to the 2001 Jennifer Jason Leigh/Alan Cumming collaboration, ‘The Anniversary Party,’ or a second generation Henry Jaglom film, in which our cast voices ribald observations on relationships and pop culture, lathered (so to speak) with four-, eight-, and twelve-letter words. To say that this movie has a lot of “heart and soul” would not be effusive praise”it’s gospel. ‘Lather”s characters literally play “Heart and Soul” on piano throughout the film. Incidentally, this comedy-drama would translate well as a Theatre Palisades production. Currently a Mar Vista resident, Kelly knew the Palisades back when the Pearl Dragon was the House of Lee and Hacienda Galvan had “the best taquitos in the world. ‘There’s a lot of things I’m nostalgic for the Palisades of old,’ she continues. ‘I think the Mobil station is the only thing left.’ Married to Steve Prough (PaliHi Class of 1984), whose father, John, formerly owned a Palisades bookstore, Kelly met her husband growing up in the Alphabet Streets neighborhood where Kelly’s parents still live. Stoltz not only appears in Kelly’s film, he co-produced it. “He sort of believed in me a long time ago,” says Kelly of the quintessential indie movie actor. Kelly worked with Stoltz on the seminal Quentin Tarantino odyssey “Pulp Fiction,” on which she was a production assistant. “He treated me like a filmmaker even when I was aspiring.” Also encouraging were director Robert Rodriguez (for whom Kelly chronicled the making of his film, ‘From Dusk Til’ Dawn,’ in her documentary, ‘Full-Tilt Boogie’); and Tarantino. ‘It was magic working on ‘Pulp Fiction.’ We all sort of knew that we were part of something special.’ Remember that notorious adrenaline injection scene? ‘That turned out to be one of the best days of my life because that was the day I met Richard Linklater. We watched them put the hypodermic into Uma [Thurman]. ‘Slacker’ [Linklater’s first film] is the movie that made me want to become a filmmaker.’ Donovan enjoyed working on ‘Lather’ with his first-time director. ‘She’s been involved with so many great filmmakers. She was egoless.’ Kelly”who is currently writing the script for the next film that she will direct”admits that movie-making in today’s climate, as a woman and as an independent filmmaker, is much harder than a decade ago. ‘Even Amy Heckerling just directed a movie with Michelle Pfeiffer that went straight to DVD,’ she says of the ‘Clueless’ filmmaker. ‘It’s a different time. ‘A lot of that has to do with a lack of distribution. These films live on DVD. The romance of going to see an independent movie in the theater no longer exists. That’s why film festivals are a filmmaker’s best friend.’ Women seem shut out of helming big-budget blockbusters, she says. ‘I believe we would also love the opportunity to blow stuff up and make horror movies. I think we can take on any of those big genres.’