The first time … at last
by Rhiannon Ross

Several feet separated the self-professed lovebirds, perched on chairs around a glass table in early September at the Screenland Theatre in Kansas City.

It took filmmakers Tom Anton and Sandi Russell more than 35 years to land here — 25 to reunite in mid-life and another 10 to complete their feature film At Last, inspired by an unlikely love story.

Their own.

“God was dangling her in front of me,” Anton, 52, director and co-writer, said grinning at Russell, now his wife of seven years. He pretended to swing an imaginary object.

“God wouldn’t dangle me!” Russell, 52, co-writer, said laughing. She shooed his hand.

Their controversial film, featured in this year’s Kansas International Film Festival, is billed as “a second chance at first love.

But some viewers may question if At Last is less about reunited, star-crossed soul mates than an elaborate excuse for old-fashioned infidelity and an attempt to reclaim the lost fantasy of youth.

Martin Donovan (Saved!, Insomnia, Opposite of Sex) portrays Anton’s character “Mark,” a husband and father who feels neglected in a one-sided relationship with a career-minded psychiatrist, while Kelly Lynch (The Jacket, Charlie’s Angels, Drugstore Cowboy) plays Russell’s character “Sara,” the wife of a verbally abusive alcoholic and the mother of an angry teenage daughter.

The movie follows the couple’s journey, from their teenage friendship in Grosse Ponte, MI, to their fated reunion 25 years later in New Orleans when love letters revealing their true feelings for one another are discovered. The letters were written decades earlier and intercepted by Mark’s manipulative but well-meaning mother. The couple reconnects, first as friends and then as lovers, in the land of the Big Easy where-anything-is-but.

“I was married for 20 years and Sandi was married for 18 and we were very committed and we had children and it was a very difficult situation. We were in bad marriages,” Anton said.

“The movie appears like it happened very quickly,” Russell said.

“But it was really a year to two year process of going through ‘What do we do?’ and back and forth, and “How do we make this work?’ and trying with our spouses and eventually you just go, ‘When my children grow up, do I want them to treat their husband/wife the way I have been treated? Do I want the same legacy for them?’”

The movie is ultimately about choices, said Anton and Russell.

“Whatever choice you make, there is going to be fallout. And you have to decide what you can live with best,” Russell said.

“And it also brought us closer to God and we have a stronger faith going through it, which is just the opposite of maybe what you might think. Having an affair, it really brings you to your knees; you really get to a place where you have to trust God.”

What the movie is not, the filmmakers said, is sappy.

They give credit, in part, to the involvement of renowned cinematographer Roberto Schaefer (Finding Neverland, Monster’s Ball, Best in Show).
In a lucky first break, the couple already had hired Monroe Kelly (Monster’s Ball) as their art director. Upon reading the script, Kelly suggested Anton contact Schaefer.

“I called Roberto and told him the story and he could not believe it,” Anton said. “He said, ‘This really happened?’ and I said, “Yes,” and he said ‘Send me the script.’ I sent him the script; he said fly out to LA; we flew out to LA. He said, ‘I don’t want to make a sappy love story. Let’s make a really good drama.’ I said, that’s why I’m hiring you.’”

Russell thinks casting Donovan and Lynch also helped elevate the script.

“They’re not typically your romantic leads. They’re edgier; more conflicted characters,” she said. “And so because they brought their own personalities to the roles, that was the other thing that sort of bumped away a little bit from that sappy love story.”

Other stars attracted to the film, all who make up the character Mark’s immediate and extended family, include Brooke Adams (The Baby-sitters Club, Days of Heaven) as his bitter alcoholic mother; M.C. Gainey (Sideways, Are We There Yet) as his free-wheeling artist brother; Jessica Hecht (Sideways, The Forgotten) as his emotionally tortured and ambivalent wife; and Marco St. John (Monster, Thelma and Louise) as his obstinate father who dealt with his own unfulfilling marriage in a more traditional way.

But Russell insists there are no good guys or bad guys in the film.

“Even with Laura (Mark’s wife) and his mom … you get a glimpse of why it is they behave the way they behave and it doesn’t necessarily make them bad people. It just makes it a choice. There’s going to be a downside to every decision,” she said.

Anton and Russell believe their love story reflects today’s reality.

“Look how many people are divorced and if they aren’t divorced, maybe should be because they’re fighting all the time in front of the kids or they’re having the affair that’s lasted for the 10 or 20 years. So who’s more right and who’s more wrong? Because we’re out there exposing ourselves, saying okay, we did it?” Russell said.

“We’re not putting a stamp of approval on everybody who’s going around having affairs, I just don’t believe that. I can’t believe that or I wouldn’t have wanted to make the film,” she said.

The film was shot in New Orleans, where the couple reside part of the year (the rest of the year they live in North Carolina). The city has been Anton’s home since 1968.

The devastation of Hurricane Katrina destroyed their home, featured in the film. It also destroyed the film’s debut in New Orleans in October, where it was scheduled to open for the New Orleans Film Festival and in the theatre.

Instead, the film will open Oct. 14 at the Glenwood Arts Theatre, Overland Park, KS. A portion of the proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to the Red Cross in New Orleans.

Anton and Russell said they love New Orleans so much they cast the city as a character in their film.

“When we wrote the script, we always saw New Orleans as a character and we wanted to show the world a side of New Orleans, a romantic side of the city,” Anton said.

“I feel we did that, thanks to Roberto and everyone else. And then Katrina comes and it’s like now I’m promoting a film where half my locations are gone and we’re really trying to do this as a tribute to the city, also, to show what New Orleans was.”

“And what the people the are fighting for,” Russell said.

Besides promoting At Last, Anton and Russell are in “pre-pre-production” on their second film, tentatively titled The Restless Lion.

“It’s a story that takes place in Austria, right after WWII, and it’s about the repatriation of Jews back into society,” Anton said.

“It’s really what happened to the Jewish people coming back and what that was like; which is so interesting now with Katrina with all of these displaced people because they were called displaced persons back then.”

“And of course, we made a love story in it also,” he said, smiling at his wife, who giggles at the mention of the word “love” like an infatuated schoolgirl.

After all, instilling hope is what their films are all about, the couple said.

“We want to leave our stories with hope,” Anton said. “There is life after divorce and it can work out and be happy.”

Rhiannon Ross is associate editor for eKC online. She can be contacted at managingeditor@kcactive.com.