Inside the Untold Drama: Crafting a Trump vs. Anti-Trump RomCom with Erik Bork
Erik Bork
Yeah, probably not, especially because we didn’t know Trump was going to be reelected when we made the movie. And so I think for audiences, and look, and I come from one side for sure, but I really tried to work to write it in a way that it would do what you said, and thank you for saying that, where you would feel like both people are fairly represented and believable and likeable, even if you’re on the opposite political side from one of them. And also, as I was funding the movie, I started getting in touch with organizations that care about polarization, and there’s actually quite a few of them, nonprofits, that this is their big issue. In fact, there’s one nonprofit that’s really trying to advocate for the media to be less polarizing and to get movies and TV shows that depict different sides in a way that isn’t sort of black and white judgmental all the time of people that might think differently than you do. And they really inspired me, and I started to feel like I want to be part of that movement, I believe in that movement, and I want the movie to represent both sides fairly, and so they helped me in some ways with doing that by giving optional script notes about the depiction of the two characters, helped me understand how someone different from me might feel the way they do politically, et cetera. And so, I wanted it to be both sides could watch it and feel those things. But getting people to want to watch it is a whole different thing. Like, when people watch it, for the most part, I’m getting very positive comments back and good ratings on IMDb and another place where people rate the movie or critique the movie. As a little indie movie, you’re always going to have some struggle with getting the word out and getting it marketed and getting big reviews and all that kind of stuff. And you can rent it anywhere, like Amazon, Apple, you can watch it on 2B for free, but it’s not on Netflix and it’s not in theaters, right? So anyway, that’s the normal thing that a movie this size would struggle with. For us, we have also the barrier of the last thing I want to see for entertainment right now is politics, because politics is driving me crazy. Or this premise sounds terrible, like dating a Trump voter, no, thank you. If you’re a progressive, dating a liberal, no, thank you. So, people that are really hard into their point of view, which I totally understand and have been that person myself, the premise may not sound fun or light or warm or a good escape. But once people watch it, they’re like, that was actually really sweet. That was actually funny. I liked it. For the most part, obviously not everyone. But I think it’s harder with Trump in office because indie films maybe tend to lean more toward liberal audiences. And the last thing liberal audiences want, potentially in January of 2026 as we’re doing this conversation, is to, you know, entertain, you know, I want to meet a nice Trump voter in a movie or whatever, you know. So, I think that that’s definitely been an issue or probably is an issue out there with people wanting to click and watch. And I understand. I totally understand.
