THE JONESES

Written/Directed/Produced by Derrick Borte

Production Notes


Credits

Main Cast

Steve……………………………………………………………...………………………………David Duchovny

Kate…………………………………………………………………...... Demi Moore

Jenn………………………………………………………………………………………...... Amber Heard

Mick……………………………………………………………………………………………Ben Hollingsworth

Larry………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Gary Cole

Summer……………………………………………………………………………..……………..Glenne Headly

KC………………………………………………………………………...………………………….Lauren Hutton

Naomi...……………………………………………………………...... Christine Evangelista

Billy………………………………………………………………………...... Chris Williams

Filmmakers

Director...... Derrick Borte

Writer...... Derrick Borte

Producers...... Doug Mankoff, Andrew Spaulding, Derrick Borte, Kristi Zea

Co-Producers...... Scott Lochmus, Jessica Stamen

Executive Producers...... Sheetal Talwar, Tom Luse, Paul Young, Peter Principato

Director of Photography...... ……………………….Yaron Orbach

Production Designer...... Kristi Zea

Costumes by...... Renee Kalfus

Editor…………………………….……………………………………………………………….Janice Hampton

Music by...... Nick Urata

Casting Director...... Pam Dixon

Music Supervisor...... Susan Jacobs


Short Synopsis

Demi Moore and David Duchovny star as a seemingly perfect couple who, along with their equally perfect teenagers -- Amber Heard (Zombieland, Pineapple Express) and Ben Hollingsworth (The Beautiful Life) -- move into an upscale gated community. The Joneses have better goods and game than any other family in town. The only problem is they’re not a family – they are employees of a stealth marketing organization, and they know how to make everyone else want what they’ve got.

Full Synopsis

When the Joneses move into town, they seem like the perfect family. STEVE (David Duchovny), his wife KATE (Demi Moore) and their teenaged kids MICK (Ben Hollingsworth) and JENN (Amber Heard) are good looking and confident, and their new house overflows with high end furniture and appliances. They seem like the family who has it all, causing no little amount of envy among the other families in the neighborhood, particularly their neighbors LARRY (Gary Cole) and SUMMER (Glenne Headly) SYMONDS. But it turns out that envy is just what the Joneses want, since they aren’t a real family, but rather a group of employees working for a company called LifeImage, whose new form of stealth marketing places “families” in wealthy markets to “life model” their clients’ products.

After a few weeks in town, the family is visited by KC (Lauren Hutton), their supervisor from LifeImage. She lets them know that while Kate, Mick and Jenn are all delivering excellent sales numbers, Steve, who is the newest member of the team, is not faring as well. She encourages Steve to hone his killer instinct, and Steve, eager to do better, does just that. He starts to really use his charm, and the fact that most of the men in town want to be like him, to sell products and services for the company. He especially focuses on his neighbor Larry, who idolizes Steve and is willing to pay large amounts of money to “keep up with the Joneses.”

Despite near-record sales thanks to each family members’ ability to endear themselves to their appropriate market, not all of the Joneses are content. Daughter Jenn engages in an affair with ALEX (Robert Pralgo), one of the community’s most successful married men. Son Mick is trying to deal with his closeted homosexuality, all the while keeping his “masculine” façade for the sake of his products by flirting with friend NAOMI (Christine Evangelista). Steve starts to find himself falling for his “wife” Kate, who also happens to be his boss.

Kate’s focus, however, remains on the company. When she learns that Steve is starting to excel at his job, she gets excited, thinking that they might be made into a flagship family, testing products before they hit shelves and modeling proper business activities. Steve, falling for her, is happy to see her so excited.

But things within the family do not go as smoothly as Kate would have hoped. Jenn has fallen in love with Alex and fantasizes about running away with him, only to find his wife MELANIE (Tiffany Morgan) waiting for her at their rendezvous. Mick attends a teen party where he brings a case of “Rudy’s Rum Punch” that Steve is supposed to be pushing. At the party, while Mick’s friend Naomi gets drunk on the rum, Mick flirts with her brother TIM (Hayes Mercure), who he soon discovers does not share Mick’s feelings. Unfortunately, neither see her stumble out to her car and drive off, later getting into an accident.

With Naomi injured and Jenn engaged in an affair with a married man, Kate panics, worrying that she and her family will be fired and she’ll lose the only life she’s ever really known. She finds comfort in Steve’s arms, and together they share one night of passion and real connection.

Kate and Steve attend a party at Larry’s the following night, where Steve finds that Larry, in his quest to be just as popular as Steve, has spent more money than he can afford, plunging so deep in debt that his house has been foreclosed on. Steve tries to wake him up to reality, and comes close to admitting to Larry who he really is. But Kate interrupts their conversation, and Larry is left none the wiser.

The next morning, Steve awakens to the sound of Nancy screaming. Larry, strapped into his riding lawnmower (which he’d been inspired by Steve to buy), is floating, dead, in the swimming pool. Steve tries to save him, but it is too late. As the ambulance comes to take Larry’s body away, a crowd forms, and someone in the crowd says to Steve, “You did everything you could.” Steve, unable to live with his lies anymore, says to the crowd that he didn’t do everything he could – in fact, he’s been living a lie, and it is this lie that has resulted in Larry’s death. Kate, knowing that Steve has just “outed” them, takes Mick and Jenn back to the house, where they pack up their things. By the time a devastated Steve returns to the house, Kate, Mick and Jenn are gone, and he is greeted by KC, who tells them the family has been relocated.

Cut to Kate, Mick, and Jenn, living in a new house, with “BOB” (Ric Reitz), the new “Mr. Jones.” Steve shows up at the back door, startling Kate, and tries to convince her to run away with him. She hesitates, genuinely conflicted, but the fear of the outside world is too great for her, and she turns him down. Steve leaves the house, and walks past the car given to him by the company and out into the night. Suddenly, a car pulls up next to him – it is Kate, picking him up, finally realizing she’d rather live in the real world with him than in the safe, empty world of “The Joneses.”

About The Production

Writer/director/producer Derrick Borte explains the genesis of THE JONESES in this way:"I used to work (and still do) in the commercial world. I am fascinated by the resourceful ways advertisers use to get products into people’s minds. Many people know about the models hired to sit at bars to smoke certain brands of cigarettes. I was very curious about how far advertisers might go to sneak their product into our brains. Instead of the girl at the bar, I placed a family in a McMansion setting, and the Joneses were born."

One of the first people who read the script was producer Kristi Zea, an award-winning producer, production designer, costume designer, and director. Zea was given THE JONESES script by a friend, who also happened to be Borte’s uncle. Zea read it and called Borte and told him she thought it was a wonderful project. They started developing the script together - he would send a draft, she would give notes. They spent hours on the phone collaborating, until the script was ready to be shown to a few choice friends in the business.

Borte recalls that there was enormous interest in the project by many in Hollywood. “I was flooded with phone calls. Absolutely flooded every night from agents wanting to pitch actors to me, to actors themselves calling who had read it. It just got out there unbelievably fast. And the biggest challenge was figuring out whom to make this film with. It’s like a Rubik’s cube where you feel like you got it done by looking at one side and then you turn it over and it’s completely screwed up on the back. I went through the process many times, thinking it was there, only to realize that it wasn’t and then everything just kind of fell into place and we were working before I knew it,” Borte describes.

In the end, Los Angeles-based production company Echo Lake Productions came onboard to put the film together. Echo Lake has helped produce and finance nearly twenty films including double Oscar nominee AWAY FROM HER, written and directed by Sara Polley and starring Julie Christie, WATER written and directed by Deepa Mehta and Oscar nominated for best foreign film and TSOTSI, best foreign film Oscar winner.

Producer and Echo Lake president Doug Mankoff says he was drawn to THE JONESES script because it was both entertaining and about something that matters. He explains, "The Joneses came to Echo Lake at a time when we were transitioning from the artistic films like WATER and AWAY FROM HER. While we, and our investors, want to make films that matter, we all realized that we needed to make films that could have a bigger footprint on the world. When we read THE JONESES, we felt we had found a needle in a haystack—a story that matters and yet is fun and entertaining."

About working with Borte, Mankoff comments, "Working with Derrick is great. He has the confidence that you usually find only with very experienced directors. That allows him to be collaborative without being threatened. He was open to all ideas, no matter where they came from, and that was very refreshing for us." Zea adds, “Derrick needed to direct his film. It was his baby from his start. I really respect someone who goes out on a limb and pursues this field as hard as it is. Giving someone the chance to work on their own project like this is very unusual. I think it was important for him to direct it.”

Meet the Joneses – Casting the Family

Once the film was greenlit, Borte needed to cast the film. Most critical in casting were the film’s leads, Kate and Steve Jones, played by Demi Moore and David Duchovny. Writer/director Borte recalls that he was looking for chemistry between his lead actors, “I met David a few years ago…we were talking about the role, he was interested and I got to know him a little bit and as soon as I met Demi, I knew there would be chemistry between them. The first time the three of us got together in a room, it was unbelievable; they played off each other so perfectly.”

Zea notes, “Both of these actors are perfect for their roles because they both represent and exude an appeal that is really important. The population that sees this movie can identify with them.” Mankoff adds, “We wanted to find actors that were well-known, who people would be drawn to because we do see this as being a commercial film that will have international appeal. Both David and Demi have that; they are well known, both here and abroad.”

Moore explains, “I was sent the script, and the general concept was fascinating.” Moore says everyone she describes the movie’s premise to says, “Oh my god, that’s genius.” About her role in THE JONESES, Moore adds, “I love the role of Kate, but I love the dynamics probably even more.” Borte describes Demi as a true pro. “She notices things that you would not believe. After a take, she’ll say that extra over there, around the corner over there, behind the other 50 extras, was doing this and she wasn’t doing that on the last take. She sees everything.” Duchovny compliments his co-star, “Demi is really energetic…on the ball at all times and has a lot of great ideas.”

Duchovny also has great enthusiasm for the film. The iconic star states that he liked the concept of THE JONESES and thought it was a clever idea interestingly laid into a black comedy. When describing his character of Steve Jones, Duchovny says, “Steve is a guy that discovers his humanity over the course of the film….by the end of the movie he discovers there is more to life than things.” Moore describes her co-star as fantastic, and notes “David has a great sense of humor, extremely smart, very giving. He has such an unbelievably easy going way and it really is just a pleasure.” Borte adds, “David is really great…he really keeps things light…but when the camera rolls, he’s on, 100 percent. He’s given me things I wasn’t expecting, showing a side of himself I don’t think people have seen yet and it’s amazing working with him.”

Rounding out The Joneses family are their teenage children, Jenn & Mick, played by actors Amber Heard and Ben Hollingsworth.

Borte met with Heard two years before casting the young actress, “Once we started auditioning girls for the role, Amber’s name kept coming back up and I kept thinking she would probably be great for it, so I had another meeting with her and she really knew the character…got the role in a way that nobody else did. And I think that you’ll see on screen that she really is perfect, she just nails it.”