Masters of Love is writer-director Matt Roberts’ debut feature, a funny and wry take on finding love and happiness in the isolation of the digital age. We had the chance to sit down with Matt, along with three of the cast members Sarah Ovens, Owen Roberts and Ciaran Dowd to discuss their involvement in this cynical twist on the traditional rom-com.
“The very early genesis of it was thinking about… I’ve been in a relationship – we’re married now – for over fifteen years, and the landscape of dating has changed so dramatically since,” explains the director. “I’ve not experienced that world, but vicariously through friends I have. I thought it was interesting to explore that idea of, when you have this infinite amount of options, how do you ever feel satisfied and happy? And that extends to lives and careers too. Wanting to explore those themes and use a second coming-of-age era in your thirties, where you start questioning all your life choices. It’s a sudden panic that the decisions you’re making then are going to shape the rest of your life.”
Owen, who plays food vlogger Josh, echoes something similar: “the film’s set around people in their early thirties, and one of the discussions we had… is that it does appeal to a wider audience, anyone who’s a little bit lost with what they’re doing in life.”
“Which apparently continues for a long time,” Sarah jokes. “All the options that are available to you in the digital age make it more confusing.”
“It’s that feeling that you should always be doing something better, or doing something else, or being someone else, or more present, or more liked, or more well-known, you should be different. We’re constantly being bombarded with comparisons, whereas in the past people were maybe happier with their lot,” Owen continues.
Ciaran seemed to agree, stating that “I think it’s a very interesting world to explore – years ago, you’d marry someone in your hometown, be with them until you died, and that was it. There was no question. Now it’s all day, every day, questioning everything you’ve decided to do. Questions are gnawing at people, and I don’t know if anybody’s got answers for them yet.”
All three actors had worked with Matt before, as the director explains, “I had the cast in my mind when writing the script, I knew who I wanted to work with. We’re close friends but they’re also fantastic actors, so we wanted to do it. There’s that shorthand and chemistry that’s really difficult to replicate, and I knew they’d bring that to the film.”
“…which given the restraints on budget and time, was very valuable,” Ciaran adds. “Matt did a lot of read-throughs… we read through the first draft and gave our opinions – Matt’s a great director to work with, because although he’s a writer-director and you’d expect that he’d have a very stiff vision of what he wants and how he wants it, he’s actually very collaborative and engaged with working out visions as well.”
“These guys are also great writers, so I’d be stupid not to listen to them when they have opinions on their characters!” says Matt. “Most of the time if they have thoughts and notes, they tend to be right. It’s a massive thing as a writer to have very talented and insightful actors do read-throughs with you.”
Being that these roles were written for them, and that there was such a collaborative effort, the actors had much personal experience to draw on in their characterisations. “I felt really close to everything that Emmy goes through,” Sarah explains. “I’ve definitely had those moments of confusion and feeling your head turning and thinking ‘Is this it?’, while still being happy with what you’ve got but wanting to explore everything before it’s too late.
“There’s this kind of time pressure that you feel for some unknown reason, even though it’s never actually too late. I really felt like she was a very relatable person. I also quite liked how flawed she was; I think all the characters are quite selfish, which I think is a real representation of the imperfections in people’s lives, it’s kind of messy and real.”
“I think similarly in the case of Josh, he’s quite selfish and childish, and he’s so bad at life. Which I find very endearing and quite fun – he just makes very bad choices,” Owen shrugs.
Sarah chimes in, “But it’s so easy to say that from the outside, isn’t it? When you’re inside something, it’s less clear. It’s so easy to judge other people’s lives, much more than it is to judge your own. In our relationship as well, Josh thinks Emmy’s got it all sorted, that she’s got the perfect life, and actually she’s going through this turmoil which he can’t see because he’s going through his own shit. Neither of them are listening to each other.”
“It comes back to projecting that image of yourself which is false, which I think is something that most people do these days. Everyone does it – ‘Look at me at this nice restaurant, look at me on this nice holiday, look at how much fun my life is.’” Owen says that, “Some of my favourite scenes with my character [Josh] are the ones where he switches from this high-energy vlogger, turns the camera off and goes back to being thoroughly depressed, because his life is actually very lonely.”
“I think we’re very much in a different time now when people are looking outside themselves at other people’s lives, instead of within their own lives,” Matt concludes. “I think it’s a pretty big problem across the board, really. It’s difficult not to look at social media and think that other people are having a better time than you… but at the same time, people are starting to become more aware of that.”
Masters of Love premiered at EIFF, but does not yet have a UK release date.