Diractors is an ongoing series in which Hassle writer Jack Draper examines films, new and old, whose directors are better known for their work in front of the camera.
They don’t make movies like this anymore.
What Happened Was, directed by the late Tom Noonan, neatly slots into a specifically ’90s aesthetic of interesting people walking and talking. Like fellow Gen X-coded filmmakers Nicole Holofcener or Noah Baumbach, Noonan started his career with a slacker attitude mixed with characters hanging on the ether of life. Helped by a theater background (the film is adapted from his own play), Noonan builds on this with a sharp eye for how adults share in each other’s loneliness. The film offers a remarkably insightful examination of how we restrict and control space, a perspective that is rarely captured with such depth. It is lovingly representative of the glory days of Sundance that What Happened Was won the Grand Jury Prize, competing against the likes of Clerks and Oleanna.
Noonan sets a small canvas to paint a much larger portrait about the desire for companionship. The film sees two people, Jackie (Karen Sillas) and Michael (Noonan himself), on a first date; their conversation gradually reveals their hidden personalities and the internal performances we take on while dating. The storyline was inspired by a real-life anecdote from one of Noonan’s friends, whose brother had once been invited to a private birthday celebration by a co-worker, only to be ejected from her apartment following a series of awkward and apparently unforgivable faux pas.
Rewatching this time on the remarkable blu-ray from Radiance, it’s funny to note how inviting someone to your home to make them dinner (and the idea of something more intimate afterwards) is something of an uncommon scenario nowadays. Despite Michael and Jackie being coworkers, they come off as strangers, as if they met on an app. It’s in the private, quiet setting, however, you can see there’s this interest with each other that is notable from the moment Michael knocks on Jackie’s door. At 6’6″, Noonan takes up the entire frame, but it’s impossible to truly take in his entrance without noticing the lights flickering in Jackie’s hall. It’s up to the viewer what kind of vibe Michael has when standing in front of a broken electrical work (I haven’t even gotten to the necktie in his pocket, another perfect joke). Michael’s arrival, and the pleasantries that follow, exemplify the thesis of Diractors: that their films are an extension of their essence, both as actors and as people.
What Happened Was is filled with so many amusing moments. When Michael and Jackie begin to make out, Michael pulls away, and thus starts to snicker at their anxiety. Later, during an uncomfortable silence in between conversation at dinner, all Michael can think to say is to compliment the food, tripping over his words. When he has overstayed his welcome after Jackie tells him to leave, there is a “now or never” feeling Noonan purposely lingers on. The poignant ending underscores how they’re not each other’s companion, but with an understanding of how each other truly perceive the world with Michael (or maybe Noonan himself) admitting the world is passing him by.
Even after a single watch, viewers will recall the sequence when Jackie offers to read a draft of her short story to Michael, a scene wholly cinematic; it lets go of any worry Noonan is simply filming his own play. Unlike sitting down to share a meal or being intimate after some wine, this isn’t a part of the rituals that are expected with a first date, but an original experience that they can then take with them after this night. It captures how the movie is able to distill the mix of cringe comedy and sadness; Michael’s attempts to focus on anything else but her ends up being more revealing than anticipated. He is a self perceived intellectual with a novel on the horizon but with no end date in sight. To quote Adam Nayman’s essay for the Radiance edition for the film, “It’s precisely the sort of unvarnished personal expression that Michael claims to aspire to, but which keeps hiding behind layers of evasion and abstraction; the voracious appetite for feeling and catharsis that compels Jackie to share her manuscript—which she keeps, in sync with the mythic-nightmare qualities of the writing itself, in a literal Pandora’s box in her dressing room—contrasts with Michael’s immaculate briefcase,which is filled with notes and research materials and kept tightly closed.” To Michael, he goes from ambivalence to confusion as the story goes on, but Noonan as a filmmaker doesn’t tell us how to feel.
It’s difficult to eulogize anyone with such a singular presence as Noonan had (I recommend critic Keith Ulich’s thoughts on his passing for The Film Stage). He is one of the first character actors I took notice of and embraced as a comfortable presence as you would a leading man. Falling in love with the films of Charlie Kaufman and Michael Mann as a teen was enough for me to appreciate the calm, quiet demeanor he has on screen. Nayman writes, “As an actor, Noonan’s specialty has always been a sort of spectral intensity, leveraging his looming physicality and against whispery line readings,” which is to say he was never one thing despite his stature, especially if What Happened Was is how he purely sees himself.
What Happened Was
1994
dir. Tom Noonan
90 min.
Currently streaming on Philo, Night Flight Plus, Fandor, and other streaming platforms
