Astrophysics and human behaviour might seem like two entirely different spheres of study, but Vancouver filmmaker David Ray believes you can understand seemingly unscience-y things like mid-life crises, marital discord, and why we do the wacky things we do, by peering into the stars and our cells.
Ray explores this idea in Grand Unified Theory, a dramedy about a brilliant academic (portrayed by Scott Bellis, who strode the boards as Friar Laurence in Bard on the Beach’s recent production of Romeo and Juliet) whose family is poised for a full meltdown at the very moment he’s about to interview for one of the top academic positions in the country. It’s poignant, it’s laugh-out-loud funny, and, if you’ve never contemplated a connection between astrophysics and the vagaries of human behaviour, it’s hella mind-blowing.
“You can look at human behaviour through so many different lenses, like Freud or religion,” says Ray. “And when you look at how the quantum world operates, and extrapolate that to human behaviour and psychology, all of a sudden it opens up a whole world of wonder and understanding. I believe we are of this universe.”
Heading into Grand Unified Theory, Ray was coming off a long stretch of writing movies for the Syfy channel.
“In those circumstances, you’re quite restricted in what you can talk about,” says Ray, who also wrote and directed 2005’s Fetching Cody, starring Jay Baruchel. Writing for Syfy, “You can’t talk about politics or religion or sex or drugs or suicide – or really anything to do with life. Anything real.”
But writing for Syfy put him in constant contact with astrophysicists and mind-expanding science. “I was inspired,” he says. “I had some time, and I just wanted to write something with freedom and be as authentic as I could, and also involve all of this cool science I’d come across.”
One scientific building block of the film is the titular Grand Unified Theory, which, according to Wikipedia, “is a model in particle physics in which at high energy, the three gauge interactions of the Standard Model which define the electromagnetic, weak, and strong interactions or forces, are merged into one single force.” (If your head suddenly hurts, Reel People wants you to know you’re not alone.) Ray relied on Vancouver astrophysicist Dr. Jaymie Matthews – a UBC professor and officer of the Order of Canada – to guide him through the science of things.
“I don’t pretend to understand anything at all, but I’m so curious and excited about human behaviour,” says Ray. “It’s so wonderful and dark and mysterious and scary and awesome. I tried to use science as a vocabulary, and I also tried to incorporate a few other things. The theme of the story is really about atonement and coming together, and each person does it in their own weird way. Our hero sees the connections between everything, but one of the characters believes in magic, another sex, another ambition. Family is really the core of it”
Grand Unified Theoryalso stars Kendall Cross, Andrew McNee, Gabrielle Rose, Raugi Yu, Emma Grabinsky, Blair Penner, and Maxwell Haynes. The film was shot entirely in the Lower Mainland over 12 days in 2015, and had its world premiere this past April at the Beijing International Film Festival. It was the only Canadian film in the running for the prestigious Best Picture prize, and Ray describes the entire experience as “mind-blowing.”
“They flew me and five actors out there and put us up in a fancy hotel. We had a press conference, and we had this red-carpet event for the awards ceremony, and they gave us multiple hair and make-up people and interpreters. We were treated like royalty, and it was a platform to speak and share this crazy theory,” he marvels.
Next up for Grand Unified Theory is its North American premiere, at the 16th edition of the Whistler Film Festival, which runs Nov. 30-Dec. 4. The packed schedule includes 50 features and 36 shorts from 18 countries, exhibited on seven screens at five venues over five days. It’sone of four made-in-BC features screening at the fest. The others are:
Broken
(Lynne Spencer, director)
Ballet BC prima ballerina Simone Orlando is the subject of this intimate documentary about what happens to an artist when injury threatens the single pursuit to which they’ve devoted their life.
Lost Solace
(Chris Scheuerman, director)
In this slick Vancouver-shot thriller, a lifelong psychopath has his world turned inside-out when he ingests a designer drug at a nightclub and suddenly develops empathy and a moral conscience.
raw*
(David I. Strasser, director)
The first film to be shot on Salt Spring Island is an inspirational story about a delinquent 17-year-old who gets sentenced by the courts to work on an organic farm run by his uncle.
Tickets and details at WhistlerFilmFestival.com
