About a year ago, Bug and I broke up. It was one of those adult, this-is-the-way-life-is-and-doesn’t-that-fucking-suck? breakups. (Is it just me or are those getting pretty common in our thirties?)
We had tried to make our relationship work the way that it had been working - Wild! Nomading! Spontaneous! Effortless Muses To Each Other! But our time in that kind of love had burnt out, and we were having a very hard time switching gears.
I think he would agree when I say we had both simply stopped growing. We had stopped trying to build the things that we needed for ourselves… for ourselves.
Even though it was truly a “it’s no one’s fault” breakup, it hurt like fuckin hell.
But, like most things that hurt, it was what needed to happen.
We ventured out on our own for a while. I finished my script I’d been saying I would write for a year. He started working on all the things he needed to do that aren’t for me to share on my substack. And then, we slowly found our way back to each other. A little bit wiser, a bit more evolved, and much more open-minded about what our relationship could be.
The space was perhaps the best thing that ever happened for us - and I’d like to take this opportunity to send an extra thanks and gratitude for friends and family who really held our spirits up during that time. Motivation for growth must come from within, but damn if the actual act isn’t a community job.
When we started “trying on” what a new relationship would look like, one of the ways we began to truly communicate was to start writing together. We wrote ourselves into characters – all flawed up and real as hell. When we spoke about their motivations, we didn’t sugarcoat the things that we saw in each other.
Through those first months of beginning to love each other differently, it became a running joke that during our breakup, Bug would obsess over his plants because he wanted to make sure if we got back together, I’d know he’d been taking care of them…But then he actually started to love taking care of the plants… And he started to love taking care of himself. You get where this is going.
One night, when he shared this story with our good friend Alex, founder of Marly, they realized this was exactly what the Marly brand wanted to be about. There are products that are touted to make growth easier (there has to a rogaine joke I could make here) and then there are products that just simply, and quietly do.
The plan for Grow was hatched on the spot. Sean and I crafted the narrative and worked together on the tone. We found our perfect protagonist in Andrew Bottini, a dear friend of a dear friend, who absolutely floored us with his selftape - making us laugh while cleaning the microwave, and making us cry while puttering around in a bathrobe. Anisa Benitez was clearly meant to be the girlfriend, as an entire breakup can be summed up in one look from her. Their chemistry was so beautiful that filming the breakup scene had many of us on set in tears.
We knew all along there didn’t need to be dialogue. Growth doesn’t need a lot of words. It’s action. And feeling. And in that action and feeling, Jeff Popkin’s score was born.
The rest of the crew – on our production, in post, and random-favor-pullers – came together to make something magical. To all of these people, thank you thank you thank you for answering the call: Kevin Willing, Monica Mejia, Zoey Towner, Ashley Alvarez, Cole Hammack, Brendan Faust, Everett Bouwer, Alan Gordon, Jacob Sharp, Cate Parker, Stephan Bielecki, Lisette Cocoa, and of course, the team at Marly Garden.
To the Bug, Sean Brennan, thank you for living this film with me, and then living it all over again. I’m a firm believer that the things we make it through should be made and shared. It’s the quickest way to make each other feel less alone. I appreciate you sharing that spirit. In your words: “Life baby!”
To check out Marly’s self-watering planters and support the brand that supported us, please follow this link and use promo code GROW for 25% off!
Learn more about this project, peek our press release here.
To follow our amazing cast and crew, please see credits below:
Executive Producer: Alex O’Brien, alexobrienh
Director: yours truly, katiemaysay
Director of Photography: Sean Brennan, seanbrennan_dp
Starring: Andrew Bottini, tronhoward
Starring: Anisa Benitez, anisabenitez
Original Score by: Jeff Popkin, bikingwithjeff
Gaffer: Kevin Willing, Kevinplugsinlights
Key Grip: Monica Mejia, aijem.mejia
Swing: Zoey Towner, zjtowner
AC: Brendan Faust, brendanfaust
Make Up Artist: Ashley Alvarez, ashleyalvarez.mua
Colorist: Alan Louis Gordon, alanlouisgordon
Editors: Sean Brennan and Katie Cunningham
Production Manager: Cole Hammack, chammack
BTS: Everett Bouwer, illgander
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