In ‘Greener Grass,’ the Suburbs Have Never Been Weirder

Few feature debuts are as bold and imaginative as “Greener Grass,” a dark comedy satirizing suburban life. Writers/directors Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe co-star as Jill and Lisa, a pair of wives and mothers who find it increasingly difficult to hold onto whatever semblance of sanity they have as they struggle to keep up appearances and one-up each other. Right off the bat, the viewer knows this is no ordinary neighborhood in the first scene in which Dawn admires Jill’s new baby during their sons’ soccer game. Instead of simply saying thank you, Jill gifts the child to Dawn in the manner someone would give away a potted plant. 

Soon after she gives away her infant, Jill and her husband Nick (Beck Bennett) find themselves at a barbeque with Dawn and her spouse Dennis (Neil Casey), making out with each other’s mates. In another moment of extreme politeness, they apologize and brush off the snafu as if they had accidentally taken off with each other’s tupperware. It was an easy mistake, as Nick explains. Dawn was holding his old baby, after all. And it only gets deliciously weirder from there.

 DeBoer and Luebbe, who hail from Chicago and Lincoln, Nebraska, respectively, found inspiration in their own Midwest upbringings for “Greener Grass,” which they have expanded from a short film they made in 2015 of the same name. They were also influenced by subversive filmmaker John Waters, “The Favourite” director Yorgos Lanthimos, and the Johnny Depp classic “Edward Scissorhands.”

The duo, who first met performing together on a team at the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York, bonded over their shared ability to find humor in domesticity and “the drama of the mundane.” 

“We definitely went back to those similar things that we used to pitch on our sketch team,” explained DeBoer to Entertainment Voice. “I think the thing that was tickling us the most at the time of doing the ‘Greener Grass’ short was exploring politeness taken to the extreme and people with warped values, treating children and husbands like pawns, people who don’t have an interior sense of identity so much as letting it be completely established by what’s on the exterior of them.”

Although Jill and Lisa are absurd, they are not completely alien, as many viewers will relate to their constant need to keep up appearances, please others, and desire for an overall better life. 

“When we first created the characters of Jill and Lisa, it definitely started out as a premise-based comedy rather than character-driven,” recalled DeBoer. “Our characters were just tools to explore a larger premise, but as we went on to develop the characters deeper for the feature, it was really important to us that although there were absurd circumstances and rather bizarre things happening, that everything was grounded in reality and emotional ethos. We didn’t want to be bored with the story, so it had to have an emotional underbelly to it.”

Jill and Lisa’s frustrations when it comes to motherhood are also relatable to an extent. While Jill is pleased that her little boy, Julian (Julian Hilliard), has placed into the advanced math class at school, Nick is disappointed that the kid falls short when it comes to athletics. All of this changes when Julian inexplicably transforms into a dog after falling into a pool, a twist that leads to more exploration of identity, as well as parents’ expectations. Lisa, meanwhile is so desperate for another child, mostly for the attention it would bring, fakes a pregnancy by sticking a soccer ball up her dress, and the extreme politeness is taken to new heights as neighbors ooh and ahh over the “baby,” Twilson (Wilson was already taken).

Said DeBoer when asked about the dog subplot, “I think the nugget of that idea came from something we had noticed when we moved to L.A. that did differ from New York. We started meeting people with kids and dogs that we didn’t know in New York. I think that something funny that we observed, and this is a dark thing to say, so take it with a grain of salt, but, at times, people treat their dogs like children and sometimes children like dogs.” 

“Greener Grass” includes an impressive supporting cast that DeBoer and Luebbe assembled mostly from their peers at UCB, including D’Arcy Carden, Mary Holland, and John Milhiser. However, after DeBoer and Luebbe, Bennett gives the most impressive comedic performance, thanks to a subplot involving Nick being in love with his and Jill’s backyard pool. A scene in which he appears to be getting intimate with the pool is one that the will no doubt leave a lasting impression on the viewer. DeBoer explained how Bennett’s own Midwestern upbringing (He’s also from the Chicago area) helped him better understand Nick.

“One of the first things he started talking about when [discussed] the script was how much someone in his neighborhood growing up reminded him of the character of Nick, particularly the pool water aspect, and he started impersonating this character. It’s the same thing as someone who’s so in love with their new grill.”

Luebbe recalled, “We filmed that pool water scene on Beck’s first day. I just remember being giddy at the monitor because of how committed and how in love with the water he was.”

Another memorable scene involves both couples dining together at a restaurant. After their meals are accidentally knocked over, they all proceed to crouch down and eat off of the floor. Watching this, one has to wonder how difficult it was for the actors to perform such an outlandish scene in earnest. As DeBoer explained, a tight film schedule typical for indie films left them little time to goof around. “Everyone was seasoned live performers, and they absolutely delivered on the first take of that, for which were lucky. If we let the tape roll, you would have seen how much we all started laughing.”

“And how much we actually ate off the floor,” added Luebe. “It was a lot of food shoved in our mouths.”

Did the crew at least clean the floor thoroughly beforehand? Answered DeBoer, “I would say the first time they did, but then we had to be like, ‘Next time, could you not use cleaner?’ It was too lemony fresh-tasting.”

Greener Grass” premieres Oct. 18 in select theaters and VOD.