As a filmmaker, my approach to storytelling is always an attempt to take relatable situations to their logical extremes. Date Night is a prime example of this. I wanted to explore the lengths to which someone may be willing to go to change how someone else feels about them. As the process of creating the film went along, though, I felt that it became so much more. What began as a farce, an examination of a young man’s anxieties and impulses, quickly turned into a question of intergenerational conflict as the character’s began to take on lives of their own. 

Our world has changed so much over the last few decades. With this change brings conflict. I’ve seen as drastic cultural and technological rifts have formed between generations. Younger generations continue to rise up and challenge traditional roles (husband/wife, masculine/feminine, etc.). I wanted to explore how two people who were raised in very different worlds could come to a mutual understanding, It’s not about one character maintaining dominance of another. It’s about both characters unlocking sides of themselves already accessible to the other.

Our actors, Dean Bynum and Kevin Archuleta, had quite the challenge taking on these roles. The characters of Date Night encounter tremendous growth over the course of one evening. We needed actors who could play both sides, who could access both gruffness and vulnerability and play them alongside each other in a believable fashion. Fortunately, they handled that challenge with grace and ease.

My wish for this film is to inspire people to approach those different from them with an open mind and to embrace necessary change within themselves. And, hopefully, to laugh a bit along the way.

 

-Josh Morton