Exclusive: Tom George on Bringing a Modern Perspective to See How They Run

A Hollywood director (Adrien Brody) is in the West End of 1950s London to make a movie version of a smash-hit play. His plans come to a haltering stop when he’s murdered, leaving Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) and rookie Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan) on a dry-witted path of whodunit.

Rounding out the cast in See How They Run are Pearl Chanda, Gregory Cox, Harris Dickinson, Maggie McCarthy, Charlie Cooper, Ruth Wilson, David Oyelowo, Sian Clifford, and more. It’s directed by Tom George and written by Mark Chappell.

“The discussion I would have with each of the different department heads of the film was like, how do we reflect the fact that on the one hand, this is 1950s London, and it wants to feel like a fully realized version of that world. But at the same time, the film only functions from a kind of modern perspective. You need to know all the stuff, subconsciously about murder mystery, film noir, the history of cinema theater in the West End, Agatha Christie to some extent… what excited me about the film was it was the chance to do a period film, but not quite how we’d seen it done before. I was very conscious of not wanting to make a sort of sepia-tinted version of postwar London because we’ve just seen that so many times over here. What was exciting about this is that it had a quite clear, modern tone running through it,” said George.

Balancing Drama and Comedy in See How They Run

Elements that contributed to the modern tone present in See How They Run, as George explained, included “always trying to keep it true to the characters and the world,” but then also considering how to put “our own light twist on it… whether it’s in that canon or not.” Which can certainly be seen in comedic aspects of the film, as there’s plenty of witty dialogue and circumstances that balance the darker subject matter like murder and addiction.

“In terms of the comedy specifically, or just the way that function is… I suppose what I’d say is Mark and I were aware from the start that one of the big challenges would be how you balance the dramatic elements, the darker elements, with the comedy. If you lean too far into the comedy, then you run the risk of undermining the stakes in your thriller, in your dramatic scenes. If it’s just the comedy, it’s just silly, you don’t engage with the characters in that way. But at the same time, if you go too far toward the dramatic thriller, the comedy drifts away. And so, kind of trying to hit that sweet spot of keeping those two things in play was always the challenge, but also what excited us both about it. And the great thing — and the thing that Mark has done so well — is that often the two are living side by side… it’s always the most satisfying for me when you can thread the comedy and drama together so that the audience doesn’t quite see it coming,” said George.

Related: See How They Run Review: A Dry & Clever Parody of Agatha Christie’s Mysteries

Whodunit & Stacked Cast in See How They Run

George noted that he thinks one of the biggest things that keeps people coming back to whodunit stories is that they allow audiences to get “right in there with the detectives,” and try to solve the mystery. “In any film, you’re trying to get your audience to really relate or share that point of view with your central characters. In a murder mystery, you’re kind of giving a helping hand, because the audience wants to know whodunit just as the detectives… there’s something I suppose comforting about a puzzle that all fits together.”

Adding to that, of course, the stacked cast in See How They Run helps to entice audiences. “It’s just incredible to have this cast on my first feature,” commented George, “It started with Saoirse Ronan, she was the first person we went to for the part of Stalker. And from the first time we talked about it, it was clear that she just got the tone of the piece. That was really important to me.”

“It’s getting the tone right,” continued George, “that felt like the biggest, most important element to me. There’s probably a version of this film where all the performances are turned up to 11 and are a little bit arched, played with a wink and a nudge, drifting into a full-on spoof. It was clear from Mark’s script, when I first read it, that what he had done so skillfully was create a comedy that functions within a murder mystery, but it didn’t drift into an out of and spoof the genre, despite having elements of homage and meta elements… and so from a performance point of view, I really felt like rooted, naturalistic, contemporary comic performances were going to be the kind of key to setting that tone against the period setting… I was lucky enough to just have some brilliant comic actors in Sam and Saoirse, and Adrien who I think just totally fitted that character of Leo Kopernick.”

See How They Run will release theatrically on September 16 from Searchlight Pictures.