Mama mia!

>> Steve Galluccio talks about exploring strained maternal relations in Surviving My Mother

by MATTHEW HAYS

Steve Galluccio says he wasn’t even trying to write a movie. His latest screenplay, Surviving My Mother, was originally intended for the stage.

“But then I showed it to producer Denise Robert,” he recalls. “She immediately saw it as a film. She insisted that this be turned into a screenplay and that we start shooting as soon as we could.”

The inspiration came from Galluccio’s own painful loss. In 2001, his mother passed away, and Galluccio says the experience was devastating. It prompted him to write Surviving, about a woman (Ellen David) who quits her job to take care of her ailing, bitter mother (Véronique Le Flaguais). Meanwhile, David’s daughter (played by Caroline Dhavernas) is hell bent on finding intimacy, one man at a time (she cruises the Internet for lusty escapades). Galluccio throws in some of the loopiest plot twists seen in some time.

The set-up allows Galluccio to get into the sometimes thorny area of mother-daughter relations. And these three characters have multiple issues with each other. “I liked the idea of exploring the different sides of the characters, their secret gardens. So many times, you think you know someone intimately and then they turn around and surprise you with a side you’ve never seen before. That’s what I was trying to get at.”

Is Galluccio doing the classic gay-male-writer thing, and basically making female characters stand in for himself? He laughs with a degree of recognition at the question. “There are parts of me in all three of these characters. When I’m old and dying, I’m sure I’ll be that bitter too.”

The able cast is matched by Galluccio, who has a penchant for one-liners, and director Émile Gaudreault (the same writer-director team behind Mambo Italiano). Working with Gaudreault again was like second nature, Galluccio reports. “We have a remarkable working relationship. Émile understands structure so well. We’re completely connected. We know exactly what our strengths are and back each other up well.”

Given the stellar success of Mambo Italiano, was Galluccio the least bit daunted by this, his follow-up film project? “No. Every project has its journey. With Mambo, the huge success of the play beforehand meant that there was already buzz when the movie opened. With Surviving My Mother, we premiered at the World Film Festival in August and the reception was amazing. We got the audience award. I was very happy with that, so I feel confident about it.

“I was asked to do Mambo 2. If I’d wanted to do that, I would have. I think I’ve said enough with that piece. That was a different time in my life.” So no Mambo sequel, ever? “Never say never.”

Now Galluccio is penning another screenplay, this one about Montreal’s glory days of the disco era in the late ’70s. Titled Funkytown, Galluccio calls it “Magnolia meets Saturday Night Fever in The Valley of the Dolls.”

“I was just beginning my club days back then,” he says. “It was such an exciting time. This movie will be loads of fun.”

Surviving My Mother opens
this Friday, Nov. 2

>> Movie Listings