“There is no way to avoid grief in life, so we all have something to lean on when saying goodbye to someone we weren’t prepared to say goodbye to,” stated Allison Williams, who stars in the film as Morgan Grant.
“The fact that we see so much of Morgan’s grief go through so many different stages was a privilege,” said the actress, portraying a mother grappling with immense loss and its devastating effects on her teenage daughter, Clara (Mckenna Grace).
“The sadness, the anger, the rage, the confusion, the drunkenness, she went through so many different versions of it,” she indicated. “I felt very lucky to be able to show this colorful journey.”
Williams explained that Morgan is unable to have a clean grief process, due to circumstances. “I think that’s why anger is what surfaces most easily for her because she’s sad and then resentful of that, because she can’t just be sad, there’s something else there.”
The way Morgan Grant expresses grief significantly differs from what the Portuguese-descendant actor Dave Franco portrays with his character, Jonah Sullivan.
“Jonah is the kind of man who suppresses the great emotions he feels,” the actor described. “He’s a very nice guy and thinks of others before himself, to his detriment,” he continued.
This habit of “pretending everything is okay when it isn’t” transforms throughout the story, with Jonah embracing what he truly feels and taking the risk of asking for what he really wants.
“This is one of Colleen Hoover’s greatest strengths, the complicated family dynamics, which I think any viewer will be able to identify with one of these characters and find something very relatable,” Franco stated.
The complexity is evident in the relationship between Morgan and Clara. “At the beginning of the film, we see a mother-daughter pair that seems close but doesn’t feel close,” Allison Williams pointed out. “It’s like a performative closeness.”
For director Josh Boone, known for “The Fault in Our Stars,” bringing Colleen Hoover’s story to the screen was an opportunity to explore themes that haven’t been shown as frequently as before – such as adolescent grief and the mother-daughter relationship.
“I think the most important things in people’s lives are their families, the people they love, their partners,” Boone said. “There aren’t many films in cinemas dealing with these things,” he noted. “I’d like to see more films like this for teenagers to watch, for mothers and daughters, about things that matter to people.”
Boone, who has a 14-year-old daughter, said that, in some way, he made the film for her. “I remember what it was like to be a teenager, and I see it through my daughter,” he shared. “I have a sister who has a complicated relationship with my mother, so I’m always drawing inspiration from my own family relationships.”
The director did not work directly with Colleen Hoover, who was closer to the producers and holds an executive producer credit on the film, but said the author liked the final result.
“I feel happy that this book exists and gave us the opportunity to put a film about people in cinemas.”
“Always You” arrives in Portuguese theaters on Thursday and debuts in the United States the following night.
