When it comes to Jonathan and Jake Kasdan, filmmaker sons of legendary producer and writer Lawrence Kasdan, I've always been Team Jake. He was the guy behind the terribly underappreciated biopic parody Walk Hard and the lovely coming of age comedy Orange County, while Jonathan made a movie I hated, the solipsistic and vaguely misogynistic In The Land Of Women. Since that movie came out in 2007 Jonathan has been fairly off the radar, but now he's coming back for his next feature, and I can only hope the results will be a little better this time around.
Teaming up with Castle Rock Entertainment, who financed In The Land Of Women, Kasdan will write and direct the romance The First Time, about the early throes of a relationship between a boy and girl in high school. Kasdan talked to THR about his goals for the film, which he compares to another Castle Rock project, Before Sunrise:
“This is thematically and almost structurally similar to that. It’s really just two large parts -- a boy and a girl. They meet, and it’s the first throes of their relationship.
He also compared the film to Say Anything, in that "it’s not broad comedy, it’s not real serious, either." That sounds a little more promising than In The Land of Women, which was much more dopey drama than comedy, but also possibly just as navel-gazing. Still, there's not really anything to gain by not giving the guy the benefit of the doubt, especially giving his fine filmmaking genes. If this one turns out well, I promise to never bring up In The Land Of Women again-- especially since, given the film's poor box office performance, I may be one of the only people who saw it.
