Back in 2021, Japanese Breakfast mastermind Michelle Zauner published her memoir Crying In H Mart, about losing her mother and connecting with her mother's Korean culture. The book proved to be a tremendous critical favorite and a surprise bestseller, and a film adaptation was announced a few months after the book came out. Zauner wrote the screenplay, and the director was going to be the White Lotus season-two star Will Sharpe. Earlier this year, though, we learned the news that the Crying In H Mart movie is "on pause," which sucks. Now, Zauner is saying more about it.
The new Japanese Breakfast album For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) is coming next month, and Zauner is doing press for that record. Today, Vulture published a new Zauner interview by Delia Cai, and it goes into the history of the movie's development. In the interview, Zauner says that it was "horrible" trying to write a screenplay about her own life:
It was kind of a worst-case scenario for a first feature about the most personal story that’s already lived a life of its own as a successful book. Now you have a bunch of strangers telling you what to change about real people.
The only thing that made me comfortable with that was that I was trying to be honest and fair to them. I would love to have the opportunity to do it again with something that’s a little bit less touchy for me, obviously, because I think that so much of making a film is you have to listen to a lot of people, and that can be a really positive collaborative experience. But I was honestly very defensive and guarded because it’s an extremely difficult, personal story. I come from two mediums where I’ve been given so much freedom. With music, I’ve always been on an indie label, and they’ve never told me what to do in terms of the creative work; I’ve never been given notes.
But Zauner did get notes on her screenplay:
Mostly just where certain events should go. I was like, But that’s not how that happened! I worried about changing the order of certain events and how it might shed a negative light on certain characters. I will just say that I have amazing producers and people who were involved with that movie, but I think for me, it was a difficult process.
Zauner says that the movie adaptation fell apart when Will Sharpe walked away from the project during the writers' strike:
We were waiting to get green-lit and then during the writers' strike, the director felt that this movie wasn’t going to get made. I think he probably had a lot of other offers; he’s also an actor. I shouldn’t speak too much about it, but he decided to leave, and I think once the writers strike was over, after going through that process already, I was like, I can’t go through that again. I just needed some space away. I mean, I was devastated when Will left. I had a very big meltdown in Hamburg, Germany, when he called and let me know, because it was a year of my life that felt completely down the drain. But I think, if anything, perspective makes the best work. So if I’ve been away from the screenplay for years, when I open it back up again, I think it’s only going to get better from there. I think someday I would like to direct it...
But I don’t feel ready. I’m still working with my producers about a long-term plan to see that to fruition, but I’d rather it not be a movie than a bad movie. So I don’t want to take it on until it’s something that I feel ready to do. I have amazing producers, and I would love to make a movie with them. But I think I need to learn how. I don’t want to learn how to direct on that feature.
For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) is out 3/21 on Dead Oceans. Read the Vulture interview here.
