After being surprised by exactly how challenging motherhood is, filmmaker Nora Fiffer drew from her own postpartum experience for the movie Another Happy Day (now available on digital and on demand platforms), starring the always brilliantly entertaining Lauren Lapkus. Really leaning into comedy with unflinching honesty, Fiffer created the film she wished she had before becoming a mother.
“I thought I was ready for it. Made for it. And as it turns out, it’s so much harder than people say it is,” Fiffer told Yahoo Canada about the inspiration for Another Happy Day. “I think part of why even someone like me, who was really game to start having children, was so blindsided by it is that there really aren’t that many honest depictions of new motherhood on screen or on stage, or in literature.”
“It’s really, really an underrepresented period of time. It’s a short window of time, but an intense one, and an identity shifting one.”
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In Another Happy Day Lapkus plays Joanna, an artist who recently became a mom, but she’s struggling to connect with her newborn daughter, Alma. Meanwhile her husband Lucien (Jean Elie) is happy to share his opinions on mothering, including telling Joanna she shouldn’t have any coffee.
When Joanna calls her mother to ask for help with Alma, her mother instead directs her daughter to an estranged aunt-by-marriage who lives nearby, Miriam (Marilyn Dodds Frank). She’s not exactly what Joanna expected. Miriam isn’t particularly fond of children, but she’s the perfect eccentric companion for Joanna as she navigates new motherhood.
“The first time I read it was a few years ago and I just thought it was so brilliantly written, and that was exciting to me, because it’s rare to get a script that’s so well written,” Lapkus said about what excited her about the project. “I hadn’t had kids yet, and then by the time the movie was being made and actually happening I had a child, and then the script meant so much more to me.”
“I didn’t experience postpartum depression, but I relate to a lot of what this character goes through.”
‘Powerful’ honesty
What instantly feels different about Another Happy Day is the honesty in Joanna’s dialogue in the film. She expresses how she feels the need to do something other than being a mother to her daughter and in one scene Joanna, speaking to her newborn daughter, says she needs Alma to give her a sign that she loves her.
“Saying those things that you don’t hear people say, it’s really special. It’s really powerful,” Lapkus said. “I have mom friends, we don’t tell each other everything about the experience. We’re not connecting about all this stuff. It’s usually like, ‘Oh my god, they’re sick again. Why are they always sick?'”
“I think it’s really important to see a character go through those things and say those things, and that’s Nora. I mean, Nora’s writing is so honest. That’s how Nora is as a person. She’s so vulnerable and so able to connect with people, and her writing does that so well.”
Fiffer stressed that she wrote the role of Joanna for Lapkus, knowing that the actor would approach the character with “incredible honesty, rawness and listening,” as well as using her impressive comedy skills.
“For her to say yes to a project like this was such a gift, because she’s exactly the person that needs to play this role, someone who can find the humour, the absurdity, the surreal-ness of it, and the honesty,” Fiffer said. “That scene, she’s talking to her baby, but she’s also listening and waiting, waiting for a response, which is the pain of that era before they start smiling, looking, talking.”
Also unique to this film is that Fiffer’s story isn’t cautious about leaning into the absurdity of having a newborn, from Joanna sneaking around her home to try to not wake up her daughter, to the various bodily fluids that get on Joanna’s clothes.
“When there’s an infant at home, there were so many times where the most absurd things would happen and I wished that there was a witness,” Fiffer said.
“I feel like by really claiming this as a comedy we widen the audience, which is its purpose. I think more people need to see a movie like this that depicts a new mother and a new couple and a new baby. And by inviting people in to laugh and having them stay for the rawness and honesty, that’s my dream.”
‘Joanna needs to find her new identity, so does the couple’
While much of Another Happy Day is focused on Joanna, Fiffer provides a compelling and nuanced exploration of the lead character’s relationship with her husband.
One scene that stands out in particular is when Joanna and Lucien start going back-and-forth with insults, but in a calm manner, with Joanna being particularly affected when he calls her “selfish.”
“I found it to be, as an actor, one of the hardest scenes, because you’re using so few words, but they’re so impactful and hurtful, and it’s like a fight without screaming, and it’s more intense, in some ways,” Lapkus said.
“It was sort of a what if scene for me,” Fiffer added. “Usually when people fight you hurl as many words as possible, but you don’t ever say what you really mean. So what if the opposite happens? What if you use the fewest words possible, but you really, really say what you mean, and when you do that, you hear it on the receiving end too.”
“What I love about that scene is, not only are Joanna and Lucien hurling one insult at a time, they’re receiving it too and the next time we see them, they are able to move forward, gingerly and tentatively. … Couples, I think, that know how to fight and repair have some strength. Just like Joanna needs to find her new identity, so does the couple now, having a baby.”
Setting a precedent for 8 hour shooting days, childcare for parents
For all the honesty and authenticity that Fiffer put on screen, she also took steps to prove that film sets can be more constructive and inclusive spaces for parents. She committed to eight hour shooting days. Additionally, the opening credits feature the childcare providers, to make people who have been “invisible” on projects now visible.
“It was about setting a precedent. It was about building it into the budget so that it was an immovable object,” Fiffer stressed. “Just like budgeting for any other piece of equipment that you definitely need to shoot a movie, a line item is the childcare provisions and time commitment, the promise of eight hours, and making sure that we stuck to that promise, and stuck to it early and from the beginning. Because, as it turned out, most people didn’t really believe it.”
In fact, Lapkus was one of those people who didn’t think the production would actually stick to that shooting schedule for the whole time.
“It was so wonderful to be able to go see my baby in the morning and say goodbye to my family who was helping me take care of her, and then go to work, have a nice day where I was rested and could be present and pay attention, because I also know I’m not going to be there sitting around wasting time for many, many hours,” Lapkus said.
“I think it’s important on any project … to do what you can do to make a workplace more accessible, and this is something that felt vital for a project like this,” Fiffer added.
“But also, I think the second part of doing it on that project is setting the precedent so that you can say, ‘OK if we can do it, this independent film can do it, then really anyone should be able to do it.’ If you can budget for like these special spectacles that this person wore in 1910, you can probably budget in a few nannies for people to be able to show up to work.”