‘It Happened in L.A.’ Explores Lives of Los Angeles Singles

Sandra Miska

Dating and maintaining relationships isn’t easy no matter where you live, but unmarried young people living in a big city such as Los Angeles face their own special sets of challenges. For her directorial debut, actress and screenwriter Michelle Morgan found inspiration in the works of Woody Allen and Whit Stillman, as well as the dating lives of herself and her friends, for “It Happened in L.A.,” a romantic comedy of manners centered around Annette, a struggling writer who makes the decision to leave her TV writer boyfriend, Elliot (Jorma Taccone) and give the single life a go. Far from having things figured out herself, the thirtysomething spends much time doling out advice to her best friend Baker (Dree Hemingway), an interior designer who wants to find lasting love, if only she can stop sleeping with her wealthy client, commitment-phobe Tom (Tate Donovan). “Why can’t you be as good as you are in my head?” She asks him early on, summing up the tone for this charming film that explores the highs and lows of that search for a mate and how the fantasy doesn’t always match up with the reality.

Quirky and blunt, Annette comes off as somewhat grating, becoming more and more endearing as the film goes on. After spending an awkward evening at a friend’s game night during which Annette is not only triggered due to an association she has with Milton Bradley to her parents’ divorce, but also comes face to face with seemingly perfect couple Nora (Nora Zehetner) and Michael (Antonio Cupo), she decides to separate from Elliot, a decision that comes across as rather hasty, especially to Baker and other friends.

“It’s not a particularly autobiographical film,” Morgan divulged to Entertainment Voice. “The headspace I was in when I conceived the movie was very much, ‘Okay, I’m in my thirties.’ I was looking at what other people were doing and comparing my life and getting caught up in that. I think a lot of couples go through periods where you think, ‘Okay, is this the person I’m going to be with forever?’ Those sort of themes really resonated with me.”

As for her how much of the real Morgan is in Annette, she explained, “I don’t like game night and I do like to wear berets, but it’s a gross exaggeration of some of my flaws… If you can’t embrace your shortcomings, how can you expect others to embrace them?”

Morgan perfectly satirizes Los Angeles cultural, especially when it comes to Annette’s courtship with Ben (Robert Schwartzman), a handsome hipster she meets at a farmer’s market. “He works in online content distribution, but his real passion is improvisational comedy,” a sentence Annette tells Baker that perfectly sums up with it’s like to meet people in a town where everybody is always trying to do something else, where when one is asked what he or she does, the answer given rarely lines up with how he or she actually pays the bills.

Elliot, meanwhile, finds that dating in L.A. is tough even for a successful person. After failing to connect with any of the beautiful, flighty actresses that his womanizing colleague (Adam Shapiro) tries to convince him he’s entitled to as a writer on a hit “Game of Thrones” -style series, he turns to prostitute Ingrid (Margarita Levieva), proving that even relationship that are meant to be cut and dry get messy in Los Angeles. Ingrid ends up offering a little too realistic of a girlfriend experience, at one point convincing him to accompany her as she picks up a TV from an ex, a hilariously scene that involves the nerdy writer struggling with a (most likely) unloaded gun.

“That was a fun scene to shoot,” said Morgan of this scene, which was her favorite to shoot. “We had a good time with that.”

But it is Baker’s storyline in which Morgan really pushes the envelope. After more than one disappointment, Baker finds herself falling for a handsome successful man who has been a steady presence in her life – her own cousin (Kentucker Audley). This subplot culminates in a provocative scene that generated a strong reaction among audience members at a recent screening at Sundance Next Fest.

“Nobody ever tried to discourage me, except for one potential investor,” said Morgan when asked if she received any pushback for being so bold as to include a romance between cousins. “[She asked me] if I would consider taking it out, and I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ [Laughs]. I think that I just really wanted to capture how challenging it is to meet somebody in Los Angeles. It’s such a difficult landscape, that at a certain time of the evening, depending how fragile your ego is, you could possibly go there. That’s how bad things can be sometimes. No judgement.”

Adding to the charm of “It Happened in L.A.” are the various settings, as Morgan chose locations that feel authentic to Los Angeles, giving a feel similar to that of, say, “Transparent.” Said Morgan, “I live in an historic section of Hollywood, and that was another big inspiration for me when I thought about making this film, just sort of the energy here, the history, the architecture. A lot of the places were filmed in and around my neighborhood. I gravitated towards places that felt a little more timeless.”

After a series of events, which include her meeting a fearless and unstable force of nature known as Simone (Angela Trimbur), Annette comes to a realization about her life. “I think she was a lot happier in her relationship that she thought she was,” said Morgan. “I think that a lot of people, their relationship on the outside to other people may not be romantic or glamorous or super passionate, but what they have is private and it works for them. That’s the most you can really ask for, a relationship that works for you.”

“It Happened in L.A.” opens Nov. 3 in New York, Nov. 10 in Los Angeles.