“In as few words as possible, the story is an exploration of two Gen-Y self-entitled hipsters who are navigating the Melbourne landscape,” Lester explains. “Pursuing their own desires and wants and needs and egos without any thought about repercussions. That entails everything…drugs, sex, partying, ego, all those elements are employed and that’s really what the story explores.”
“It’s a very dark comedy,” adds Mitchell. “It’s very culturally Melbourne-centric. It’s got some pretty dark themes, so we’re eager to see how it’s critically received because it could be perceived as being politically incorrect or misogynistic, which is not our intention.” He’s not wrong. Start.Options.Exit. certainly challenges the mainstream. The two lead characters, pretty unlikeable hipsters Neville and Yolis, roam around in a world which they seem to believe exists purely for their own personal gratification.
“Nothing is glorified in this world,” asserts Lester. “Nothing is made to look shiny or really good, it really is a dark exploration of humanity in general, particularly with a spin on the male perspective and ego. For three male writers it was really an opportunity to explore the places our minds would go and where our egos would take us. It’s exciting for us because we don’t really feel in Australian film that this generation really gets an honest mouthpiece. Nine times out of ten it’s kind of watered-down or skated around, and this is really just a no-holds-barred honest portrayal of a generation that, despite all the opportunities for there to be people talking out, Australia just keeps side-lining as a part of our culture. Our underground arts culture doesn’t have a representation in Australian media and film. The last thing that would have come close to it would be a film called Dogs In Space back in the ’80s. Even since then, we’re talking nearly 30 years ago now, a couple of generations have passed. The landscape has changed and attitudes have changed.”
Mitchell and Lester, along with star and co-writer Ari Neville, wrapped up a successful crowd-funding campaign last year with a little help from Melbourne icon Franco Cozzo and the star-power of their supporting cast – Totti Goldsmith, Ron Jeremy, Rhys Mitchell and the last ever film appearance of Mark ‘Chopper’ Read. “We were looking for someone to play a post-traumatic stress disorder psychotherapist,” Mitchell recounts. “And we thought ‘hey, Ron Jeremy would be a really good candidate’. He fell in love with the script, and asked us to write some new material which he loved and the next day we were filming with him in the Prince Bandroom.”
“What was most important to us was to make something that we wanted to make and see, without any restrictions,” says Lester. “That’s why we went the route of crowd-funding and self-funding this project because it was important for us to hold complete creative control and make decisions without judgement. We had over 500 people collaborating on this project – extras, crew, cast, post-production team – we were producing this ourselves and to start off on that first feature length with full creative freedom and no boundaries. I think that’s why it came off so well.”
“We didn’t consciously go into it thinking anything but what we weren’t happy with were any constraints or worrying about censorship,” states Mitchell. “As a result it really reflects our humour and some of the dialogue we have among our friends. It’s probably true to what a lot of guys in their late 20’s or early 30’s joke about with their mates, y’know? But often you wouldn’t feel comfortable saying it in public. As far as when you catch yourself saying something that’s politically incorrect in front of a room of people and censoring yourself, we didn’t do that in this process.”
BY JOSH FERGEUS
