Spin Me Round, the new film co-written by Alison Brie and Jeff Baena (and directed by Baena), is hard to describe—and that's the way they like it.
"I would say the same about all my collaborations with Jeff," Brie told Newsweek.
"This is our fourth film that we've made together; it's the second film that we've written together and produced together. I think that is the running theme. And I think that's why I like working with Jeff. He doesn't subscribe to genre, really, and we get to just follow a story in all the weird directions we might think it's fun to go, and that's certainly what's happening here."
The two previously worked on 2016's Joshy, 2017's The Little Hours and 2020's Horse Girl, which Brie co-wrote.
On its face, Spin Me Round, out August 19, is about Amber (Brie), the assistant manager of Tuscan Grove, an Olive Garden–like knockoff, who gets the opportunity of a lifetime when she's invited to Italy for a company training program. But, you may have guessed, things are not quite as magical as they seem, and every time you feel like you've got things figured out—or even know what kind of movie you're watching—the rug gets pulled out from under you.
"I guess I'm drawn to things that are hard to categorize," Baena told Newsweek in a separate interview. "I think if you can easily categorize or describe it, why make it? So my instinct has always been to go somewhere that feels uncomfortable and unfamiliar. And so the consequence of that is that it's indescribable."
In addition to Brie, repeat Baena collaborators Molly Shannon, Fred Armisen, Lauren Weedman, Debby Ryan and Baena's wife, Aubrey Plaza, also star. Alessandro Nivola, Lil Rel Howery, Zach Woods, Ayden Mayeri, Ego Nwodim and Tim Heidecker round out the cast.
"I think that after having worked with certain people, I'm just drawn to working with them again," Baena said. "My movies tend to not fit neatly into any kind of box, and going through that experience of shooting it and kind of knowing how I work, it's definitely a benefit to be able to go back and do something else with those people since they already have a sense of how things are. But more than anything, I love actors, I think whenever I work with new people, I try to incorporate them into the next movie...I think it's mostly that I fall in love with their performances and them themselves."
For Baena, one of the biggest highlights was getting to collaborate with legendary film-and-TV composer Pino Donaggio. "I've always been a massive fan of his and honestly reached out to him on a lark, not expecting him to accept the offer," Baena says of Donaggio, whose work includes collaborations with director Brian de Palma on the 1976 Stephen King adaptation of Carrie and1984 thriller Body Double.
"He's such a warm and lovely person, and being able to go to Italy after we finished editing and sitting with him and arranging the score and literally collaborating with this genius master was one of the most invaluable experiences I've ever had. It was one of the ultimate highlights. When I first set out to write this as a movie, in the back of my mind, I always had the Body Double score playing in my head for what I was going for. It was an insane boon to have Pino as a collaborator."
Spin Me Round hits theaters, VOD and AMC+ on August 19.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
