The intersection of absurdity and anxiety in the everyday is propulsively becoming more intertwined with American culture. But still, there must be room to laugh. Allison Torem’s “Don’t Come Home before Midnight” is central to these tenets. Though not a political film, it targets the marriage of these emotions in the quotidian exploits of its lead character.
The film screened at the 2025 Cinema Femme Short Film Festival and walked away with the Critic’s Choice Award. Blurring the line of performance and reality, “Don’t Come Home Before Midnight” follows a method actor, Inspector (Bradley Grant Smith), who is investigating a ridiculously hostile children’s tennis camp led by the caustic Bapo (Danny Rhodes). But as the investigation deepens, Inspector’s grasp on his own world, at work and at home, becomes more unstable.
Torem’s vision of the mundane is inseparable from her grasp on the humor that exists in an increasingly antisocial society. If one wonders what happens when everyone’s conversations and pursuits take place with plugged ears and insurmountable self interest, this film explores that with verve and a boundless capacity for the weird. “Don’t Come Home Before Midnight” is shocking, hostile, hilarious, and wonderfully off-kilter. I spoke with Allison about the film’s inception and creation, as well as what humor means to her in a world so different from where this story first began in 2014.
Can you tell me a bit about the inception of “Don’t Come Home Before Midnight”? It’s my understanding that this film has been around a decade in the making. Why was this year the year to put it out? And what do you love most about it?
The idea was to make a short film in a week, from start to finish, and that’s exactly what we thought we did. My big sister Emily and I grew up on classic absurd comedies like “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” “Naked Gun,” and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” films which we had no idea were toying with if not satirizing long-established legal, political, medical, economic, and media conventions that shaped our everyday lives. At the time, these films appeared to be just as playful as us, like when we screeched non-sequitors at pedestrians from the car window or wore underwear on our heads or played tennis at the park, informed in all of our fun by a total lack of skill and purpose while embodying one of the core unspoken values of our family: it is important if not crucial to be willing to laugh at yourself.
Cut to our creation of the storyline for “Don’t Come Home Before Midnight,” having just signed up for a one-week filmmaking challenge hosted by Rat Party Productions, we returned to the tennis court, no more skilled at the game but this time armed with purpose and an undeniably updated sense of place in our dysfunctional surroundings past and present. In order to take the pressure off of the brainstorming process, I asserted that with each swing of the racket, we blurt out another story beat.
Immediately after the game, we proceeded to draft the script, and, after engaging in a brief revision process, on set just a few days later we found that thanks to our actors’ willingness to play the truth in the most ridiculous of circumstances, further writing tweaks felt broadly irrelevant. We were all having fun in our collective suspension of disbelief, so much fun, and over-analysis would’ve gotten in the way; it appeared as simple as that. It wasn’t until years later when I happened upon the footage— after almost a decade of watching the movie for pure escapist entertainment (thanks in no small part to Alex Thompson’s brilliant work on the edit)— that I considered how serious some of the unconscious work that had produced this screenplay so readily might have been.
It seems to me now that “Don’t Come Home Before Midnight” was made possible by my sister and I blending our childlike playfulness— that shared drive to find excuses to laugh anytime and to make fun everywhere— with an increasingly palpable anxiety about how screwed up the things we took for granted as normal growing up actually are. And so I found myself wondering, “What does this project mean to me now on an artistic, personal, and social level? And is it done?”
Emily joined in my curiosity, and I brought the project to Max G. Mooney, a bold, curious, and sensitive editor who had seen the movie years ago and loved it. The three of us aligned immediately on our approach: we would engage in a genuinely exploratory process in order to determine whether there was an “updated” version of the film that would be leaner and more polished— not at the expense of what we loved most about the original but in support of it— and which we would be excited to push through the remaining phases of post-production and ultimately offer to an audience beyond ourselves. It was a pleasant surprise that we wrapped everything up on the ten year anniversary of shooting the film, down to the month.
What do you love most about it?
I love that, in lieu of the high speed car chases, portals to alternate universes, and ancient three-headed beasts of the classic absurd comedies Emily and I grew up on, what emerged for us was a quieter and less gargantuan story which absolutely had to take place in a series of mundane environments from start to finish, not just for production purposes, but on a purely artistic level as well. What we worked to define in the edit and then enhance and protect in sound design with Zach Scheitlin and color grading with Nicholas Lareau was the delicate and surreal experience of watching our leading man attempt to discover, invent, and perform a confident and coherent adult social identity while witnessing, resisting, and contributing to his own feelings of fraudulence and defamiliarization in everyday life. Because to feel underprepared, bewildered, and even humiliated is to be expected when showing up in new societal roles and in far-off places, but to feel those same feelings in one’s own wardrobe, home, neighborhood… that’s a different story. And when that’s the story, mundanity becomes exciting— thrilling, even, at least to me— because of its essential role in the protagonist’s and the audience’s disorientation.
I really value the idiosyncrasy present in your work. Your voice is so crystal clear. Part of that is in the radical acceptance of the convoluted escapades in which your characters find themselves. In the writing process, how do you work through your ideas? I imagine you have many that you can work into these webs. For this story, how did you know you’d strung the yarn just right?
To the extent that the artistic process is a balancing act between embracing a flurry of impulses and taking a more methodical and patient approach, “Don’t Come Home Before Midnight” is just an extreme example of that. I’ve always tended to write first screenplay drafts of short films very quickly, just allowing everything to fly. Over the years, though, I’ve learned the value of giving the revision process more time, so that if and when I put a script into production, I know why I’m doing it, I know why I’m doing it the way I’m doing it, and so that I feel confident we’ll be using our time efficiently as a team because we’ll be working from a vetted script. Years ago, what felt accessible to me was signing up for “filmmaking challenges,” which in their tight turnaround time offer participants the opportunity to be 100% committed in the face of low pressure results, which is a powerful combination for the anxious and evolving artist, and sometimes even for the art itself. (So much so that I imagine I’ll engage in more of these in the future.)
In the case of revisiting “Don’t Come Home Before Midnight” years after shooting it, engaging in the analytical process of “killing your darlings”— which is always painful before it is rewarding— was particularly tricky because we’d (literally) viewed the movie as a finished product for years and enjoyed it for exactly what it was. On top of that, we were also working in an absurd and surreal tonal bandwidth, which, as Max and I learned through our collaboration on “ROAD HEAD,” requires you to sensitively imagine and then confidently assert the difference between “crucial” moments of wackiness and those which could be argued detract from the audience’s ability to take them in (a process which sometimes makes the pursuit of “objectivity” feel like a joke in and of itself). So when considering whether to cut anything at all and if so, what and why, feedback felt as meaningful as ever.
Feedback fell into effectively three categories: “WOW I LOVE THIS MOVIE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, I’m not sure what you’d cut, but I could see it being shorter!”, “WOW I LOVE THIS MOVIE WHAT THE F**** IS HAPPENING, you-should-cut-this-down,” and “Uh… Huh… Yeah… Not really my thing… What… is this? And yeah… Cut it down… For God’s sake…” I felt inspired and reassured by the unanimous aspect of the responses, and it was the particularly impassioned affirmation and detailed notes we received from Dave Paige, whom I’d had the pleasure of meeting at Tallgrass Film Festival when “ROAD HEAD” screened alongside his work, that gave me the courage to attempt some more “risky” cuts. And it was making these kinds of cuts that enabled us to fully commit to the tone and to reshape the film into something which felt appropriate for the— as described by another incredibly helpful notegiver, Alex Megaro— “anarcho-comedy” that it is.
This film is such a fever dream. Every character embodies their own world with themselves at the irrevocable center. Hilariously for their own better and worse, it almost feels like there’s a language barrier between each character that they have to hurdle to move forward. Everyone is severely self-interested. I feel like this really plays into our current times, which feel monumentally antisocial. Does this resonate with you as well? How do you go about writing these interactions in the film?
It’s wonderful to have you call this movie a “fever dream”— that’s how Bradley Grant Smith (Inspector) described it years ago. To me, each of the adult characters is playing out their own deranged interpretation of an easily accessible character archetype, and Inspector is the only one experiencing any visible self-doubt in the process. He exists in a world in which adults— as derivative, illogical, hypocritical, counterproductive, and even ill-willed as their methods and justifications may be— are rewarded for being all too self-convinced. By contrast, the children on the court can’t help but display how confused, out of place, and otherwise bored they are. But Inspector, trained in the adult world to lead with purpose even when he has none, and to confuse an over-confident delivery with substantiation, avoids the terrifying work that awaits him within by committing to a rather arbitrary and absurd distraction that he hopes will bring narrative structure and external validation to his life. I do hope that the film might offer its audience members the chance to connect through a shared willingness to laugh, ideally at themselves— because life isn’t fair, and it doesn’t always make sense as we get older, but there’s comfort to be found in the reality that, upon inspection, we are all making it up as we go along. Thanks significantly to the nuance Bradley brought to his performance (including his performance-within-a-performance), this Carl Sagan quote comes to mind: “Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our ignorance about ourselves.”
With regard to our current times, if “Don’t Come Home Before Midnight” is a short existential comedy about the theatrical nature of adult life and the absurdity of American values, then when situating it within today’s context specifically, I definitely do notice an overlap between the narcissism, denial, cruelty, hypocrisy, and ignorance (some genuine, some willful, and some feigned) that undergirds a lot of the comedic tension in the film and that which is on jarring display in our current, real-life historical moment. Rewatching the film these days, I also realize how nostalgic I am for a time when I had to actively look for the absurdity in everyday life in order to run with it. Now, in our current historical period of competing surreality, devastation, and mundanity, not even my favorite classically lauded satirical comedies— films which expertly exaggerate flawed societal realities in order to amuse and make a point— provide me with quite the same comfort through escapism that they once did upon the rewatch. How could they, when what used to be an exaggeration is now equivalent or even tame in comparison to our daily reality in recent years? And how can art being made today be expected to exaggerate real life when it’s so busy trying to keep up with even realistically representing the very serious ridiculousness of our current historical moment, a ridiculousness that is so severe and unrelenting that it often seems like a satire of itself? I don’t know, but I can say that making a movie that still makes me laugh, even after all these years, and even after all these rewatches, has been a welcomed reminder to maintain my sense of humor in the face of existential dread— and cognitive dissonance, societal disillusionment, and even rage!
Your punchlines are both frequent and fleeting. I catch something new every time I watch the film. I’m curious if you have a favorite. For me, the opening question – “does your kid suck dick at tennis?” – is unforgettable.
To have a film critic quote that line to me is enough to justify every mistake I’ve ever made and to compel me more deeply down the grotesque and humiliating path of an independent filmmaker! So thank you for that. I think my favorite line in the movie is the unmistakable Meg Thalken’s line, “Don’t come home before midnight.” I chose this line for the title because it invites the audience into a world of potential role reversals, a world of blurred boundaries between childhood play and adult responsibility, and a world in which familiar understandings are subjected to the light. Growing up, we’re told that it’s inappropriate to express our emotions, that there’s time for play and time to get real work done, that strangers outside of our comfort zone are our biggest threat, that we should go to bed in order to rest, and that things will make more sense when we’re older. What happens when, contrary to common reassurance, things make even less sense when we’re older? When adults are still playing dress up, but now, their very senses of self depend on the unacknowledged continuation of these performances? And what happens when authority figures are, at best, faking it till they make it, and at worst, doing much more harm than good? What happens when strangeness has already crept into the familiar, not only into our nightmares but our consciousnesses, and daily life feels, as you said, like a fever dream?
My second favorite line has to be “I think now would be a great time to express my grievances as a parent,” not just because since performing this role and now, Amy J Carle (Jerch Herkenstein) has become a mother, but because the line, and the way Amy performs the monologue that so clunkily follows, embodies what I love about playing with theatrical and metatheatrical elements in film. I’m especially curious about blurring the line between audience members and artists— audience members in their desire for communion and catharsis through voyeurism, and artists in their attempt to control a narrative and offer it in exchange for being seen, heard, and affirmed as both special and belonging in return.
I’m also struck each time by how incisive and unabashed your dialogue is. It proxies the fears we have with our funny bones, and for me, that’s the point of comedy and the crux of coping. I think of “Is your daughter asking for it? Is your son a rapist?” It’s shocking on the ears but it’s so on the pulse of the fears of raising and/or witnessing young people in the climate and precarious values of today. What does comedy mean to your work? Do you find catharsis is your bluntness?
E.B. White said “Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.” I’m weary of the attempt to perfectly understand artistic preparation, execution, and reception, but also, it’s so much fun to wonder! And I love that there can be two equally entertained viewers of our film, one who comes away thinking, “That was goofy, now what’s for dinner (hopefully not cold cereal)?” and another who comes away, like yourself, eager for discussion and, with the help of a rewatch or two, further clues into how the comedic value functions within a broader social deconstruction. To me, that’s encouraging.
Personally I’ve enjoyed being whiplashed between moments in the film of true absurdity and moments that feel absurd to witness because they remind me of something true— and troubling— in real life. And although I helmed the project during a brief flurry of artistic impulses long ago, I can confidently speculate that its themes were informed by a contrastingly heady day-to-day life. At the time, I was engaging with hundreds of pages per week of academic texts in social psychology, sociology, anthropology, and history, all of which shook, humbled, comforted, and inspired me as I transitioned from viewing myself as an autonomous individual into viewing myself as a member of society whose biases, standards, habits, fantasies, definitions of success, and so much more were a product of context (time, place, situation, etc); into viewing myself as someone who had been constructing a social self in relation to a variety of constantly redefined and shifting power dynamics and cultural norms since before she learned to tie her shoes. In addition to the bluntness in the film simply being a reflection of my sense of humor (and a reminder that just because something is said confidently does not make it true, reasonable, or even worth listening to at all), I also wonder if it offers a respite for the overthinker in me.
Fears or trepidations around culture today may certainly echo in your work, but there’s also so much laughter and joyousness that emit from the film as well. I can feel how fun this was to make. I’m curious about what excites you. Are there elements or figures in your community here in Chicago that feel essential to building out these characters and this world?
Of all of the compromises that need to be made as an independent filmmaker, I can’t imagine compromising on tone. Tone is so meaningful and exciting for me to play with, and in order to discover, build and commit to the “right” tone, I tend to need actors who are able to imbue theatrics with realism and vice versa. Even better when they can embrace the brashness of an infomercial, the solemnity of a drama, and the silliness I have in my mind that I probably couldn’t fully even explain if I wanted to. “Don’t Come Home Before Midnight” wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun to make, let alone to watch once all was said and done, without actors as capable as ours. And where better than Chicago to find such tremendously talented performers living otherwise normal lives who can play confidently across drama and comedy and across film and stage?
I wonder, too, about the ways in which my work reflects my experiences as a Chicagoan born and raised. As one particular version of an insider, I’ve only recently begun to put into words a certain normalized tension I’ve experienced here between breaking the ice with strangers at a bus stop in the heat and neglecting to go deep with folks you’ve known for decades. It was in this tension that I first learned to question things, to be myself, and to make fun even and especially when I feel nervous. I think Emily and I brought this tension to the tennis court in making “Don’t Come Home Before Midnight,” where the most ridiculous thing happening on screen at any given moment is simply that a human being is saying and doing what they’re saying and doing, in otherwise comfortable and mundane places, and that it’s barely being acknowledged. There is something explosively awkward and artistically irresistible to me about that.
You strike me as an actor’s director. There’s so much room for play and experimentation in your scripts. Is this informed by your own background in front of the camera? How else has acting made you a better filmmaker?
I imagine no writer/director sets out to offer an oversimplified representation of life that relies on a trite narrative and condescends to its characters and therefore its audience, and which overstays its welcome in the process. But it is a risk, in comedy and in every other “genre” of film. In my effort to create pieces I will still find entertaining and meaningful on a craft and personal/social level in the future, hiring great actors is a no brainer. Stepping into screenwriting with an acting background meant that I inherently appreciated the value of character in any story I was involved in telling, and of the actor’s process of turning words on a page into a presence that is layered and full and which contributes to the larger whole (and which might even surprisingly redefine that larger whole for the better). As I wrote scripts, I took to automatically imagining actors having their way with the written interactions, and I think this helped me to overcome the pitfall of overwriting. As I directed these scripts, knowing full well what actors go through in order to make their directors happy, I tried to become the kind of director I’d want to work with as an actor— a director who trusts her actors, sets the scene in order to help them discover the moment, provides performers with healthy challenges, and walks the line between under-directing and over-directing. Being this kind of director feels more achievable when I’m working with actors who make me more excited about the roles than I already was— actors who can command a room but also communicate a lifetime with just a glance, and who can embrace their characters without judgment. Watching great actors do great work is one of the coolest manifestations I can think of of the Latin expression attributed to the playwright Terence, “Nothing human is alien to me.”
In the same vein, your comedic writing is so sharp and works in tandem with the balls to the wall commitment of the performances in this film. Can you talk about what the making of a scene looks like on your set? How much improv is involved and what do you admire most about your cast?
I would love to someday lead a set that leans heavily on improv to get from Point A to Point B in the story and to stumble upon jokes that you just can’t write. We did rely on improv for one section of “Don’t Come Home Before Midnight:” when Bapo is training his tennis students on the court (and in doing so, we benefitted as much from our wonderful DP Cory Popp yes-anding the actors as we did on our actors yes-anding each other). That aside, though, with few exceptions, and in line with my other short films so far, we were very loyal to the script. I think that, in light of all of the bizarre things we were already asking our cast to do and say, and the realities of our tight timeframe, it best served our process to hand actors something we were confident about down to every word choice and word order, asking them neither to fix nor complete the script, but instead to trust and embrace it and to make it even better by breathing life into it the way only actors can. To the extent this film appears like it might’ve been largely improvised, I think that may actually be because these actors— Bradley Grant Smith (Inspector), Danny Rhodes (Bapo), Meg Thalken (Wife), Amy J. Carle (Jerch Herkenstein)— who are brilliant at their craft, spent all their available resources being emotionally present and “playing” in the moment within the creative potential of the constraints of the script. That, in combination with their willingness to trust and indulge me even when they didn’t quite understand me, allowed us to get the footage we needed on schedule and to have a great time doing it.
In all, what I really admire is that your work exists at a juncture of functional (and funny) excess. What does creative indulgence mean to you?
There’s this notion that if we make art into adulthood outside of the respectable boundaries of a “creative outlet” or “hobby,” then we are unserious people, and it’s a problem. This can feel especially applicable when creating “comedy” and/or “experimental work.” In this way, I think much of what we do as artists is vulnerable to feeling like an indulgence. If I allow myself to take for granted for one moment that art unequivocally matters in any healthy society, and that that includes artful comedy, then, to me, creative indulgence means allowing myself to make work which blends elements so often treated as mutually exclusive, if and when doing so feels integral to the tone of the piece.
There are so many either/or’s in the arts— highbrow versus low, comedy versus drama, subtle versus over-the-top, satirical versus earnest, even “narrative” versus “experimental,” the list goes on! To me, if anything, “comedy” is best understood as a tonal element that can be embraced by any genre, not a genre in and of itself. To me, making art requires at least some element of experimentation, whether the piece features a “narrative” or not. To me, art should be allowed to imitate life in life’s relentless capacity to surprise us by integrating two previously unfathomably distinct elements, and artists should be allowed to at least attempt to mirror the surreal experience of trying to keep up.
