AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
In the new movie "Forbidden Fruits," Pumpkin is working at the mall's pretzel stand when she meets a trio who call themselves the Fruits.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FORBIDDEN FRUITS")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) The Fruits are so hot.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Wait, don't they pay?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) We don't charge the Fruits. God, they are so hot.
RASCOE: Apple, Cherry and Fig - they work at a boutique called Free Eden, which looks a lot like a Free People. But after hours, it becomes something else entirely.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FORBIDDEN FRUITS")
LILI REINHART, VICTORIA PEDRETTI AND ALEXANDRA SHIPP: (As Apple, Cherry and Fig) Goat's milk, thigh gaps, rose petals, bone casts, truffle oil, blood clots, juice press.
RASCOE: Upstairs in the store's storage room, they gather as a coven. And Pumpkin finds herself drawn in, eager to belong. Director Meredith Alloway and Lola Tung, who stars as Pumpkin, join us now. Thank you for being here.
LOLA TUNG: Thanks for having us.
MEREDITH ALLOWAY: Thank you. This is so exciting.
RASCOE: So this movie, it's based off this off-Broadway play. Meredith, what drew you to make this into a movie?
ALLOWAY: Yeah, the play, it's written by Lily Houghton, and we have the same manager. And he had been telling me about this play for, I want to say, a couple months. And when I read it, I was just so struck by the whole play is about women. It's not about women in relation to a male character. You know, it really is about the multitudes in female friendships. And I saw a lot of myself in the characters, and I didn't see a lot of myself in the characters at the same time. And I really felt like there was an opportunity to make a film that sort of uses body horror and genre as a way to kind of hyperbolize what's happening in the play.
RASCOE: Well - and, Lola, you play Pumpkin, who starts as an outsider. Why does Pumpkin want to be a part of the Fruits?
TUNG: Ultimately, I think she's someone who's never had a close group of friends like this and a close group of girlfriends like this. And what they have is very special, this, like, sort of paradise they've created. And I don't think Pumpkin's ever experienced that type of, like, community or belonging, and she slowly starts to just kind of become more and more a part of it and fall deeper into it.
RASCOE: Well, I mean, that comes up over and over again. I mean, so much about this movie is about friendships, right? And these characters who haven't had these sort of connections before. Did this movie make you think about your own friendships and how they look and how they develop?
ALLOWAY: You know, we pitched around the movie to a bunch of producers, Lily Houghton and I. And they sort of said, aren't we supposed to be making art about women loving each other? And that was, like, in a way, a good question to be asked very early on before we even wrote the script because in every single scene, you know, I like to say they're trying to build a garden in a cement block that is, you know, the American mall. They're operating in systems not really there to support them at the end of the day.
I think it made me really reflect on my own female friendships, and, you know, when have my female relationships really thrived, and when have they suffered, and what has been sort of the villain in those situations? And in the movie, the women confess in a dressing room to themselves in the mirror and to the great femme martyr, Marilyn Monroe - and, Lola, you can probably elaborate on this. Like, if they just confessed to each other, maybe the chaos would never happen. And that was really something I, you know, related to.
TUNG: Yeah, I mean, ultimately, I guess what the confessionals are is just, like, clear communication and honesty, and that's always important in friendships and relationships. And I think they all think that these things that they're confessing are bad or worse for the group. But ultimately, like, they're all their own individual people and should be communicating. But yeah, I mean, that's a good point, Meredith.
RASCOE: And the coven has these rules that they do to try to forge loyalty. It's to protect each other.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FORBIDDEN FRUITS")
VICTORIA PEDRETTI: (As Cherry) Rule 1, we follow the shine theory. Shine theory states women illuminate when they surround themselves with other women who shine, and they don't do anything to dim their light.
ALEXANDRA SHIPP: (As Fig) Rule 2, the vindicar (ph) - the demon that derives pleasure from other people's pain and misery. You must banish vindicars (ph).
LILI REINHART: (As Apple) And most importantly, rule 3 - we only text boys using emojis.
RASCOE: I mean, it seems like part of this is the Fruits kind of navigating being straight but also committing to each other over men.
ALLOWAY: I'm not in my 20s anymore, thank God. No, I'm just kidding, but, you know, it feels very - the sort of things that I went through in my 20s, and it did feel sort of, like, mutually exclusive, you know? And I think at least for me when I got older, I was like, oh, like, the real sisterhood are women that really support you in whatever relationship you want to have.
RASCOE: How does the consumerism kind of play into this, their connection to the material items? I mean, there's obviously all the clothes, all the fashion. How does the consumerism affect the lives of these characters?
ALLOWAY: Yeah, I think that just starting from the given circumstances of the story, like, these women work in retail, and anybody that's worked in retail or shopped in a store, you know, how the people there are dressing and talking to you influences what you do or do not buy. And, you know, in the script, there - they call - the word, like, love, babe is used, like, ad nauseum. It's a mandate at the store that it's based on that you call customers love or babe. And so already, there is this, like, innate sense of, like, I am manipulating you to get what I want, but also to give you what you want. Yeah, it's like, at some points, you think that they're in this environment that can empower them but also consume them.
RASCOE: This movie is, like, in that, you know, genre of, like, "Jennifer's Body," "Mean Girls," "The Craft." What do you think this story, in particular, brings to that genre of female-led films like this?
ALLOWAY: We're very much still in the process of it being out in the world and getting sort of feedback on things. For me, it's more about I hope that people have conversations just around expectations of women, their own female relationships. I hope - you know, we've had a couple of boyfriends be like, yeah, I didn't really realize this is what was going on behind closed doors at the slumber parties. Lola, did I - am I making any sense here (laughter)?
TUNG: Well, I mean, I think also what you said, too - we were talking about all these movies, you know, like a "Jennifer's Body," and we honor those movies. We respect those movies. They paved the way. Also, now we're in a completely - this is 20 years later. It's a different story. That's why it's able to, you know, resonate with, like, my generation or with people in general because you didn't try to make something else. You know, I think "Forbidden Fruits" is it's completely own thing, which is really, really, really special.
RASCOE: That's Lola Tung and Meredith Alloway. "Forbidden Fruits" is out now. Thank you so much for talking to me.
TUNG: Thank you.
ALLOWAY: Thank you. Thanks for your great questions.
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