'Mrs. Ritchie' honors teen's gentle mentor
By Bridget Byrne
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Friendship and family are important themes in Showtime's "The Incredible Mrs. Ritchie."
They're also the film's genesis.
Paul Johansson, the movie's writer and director, recalls telling friend Nick Cassavetes a story about a woman he worked for as a youth.
"(Cassavetes) said, 'Stop talking. Write it down,"' remembers Johansson, who complied. "I showed it to him. He had a very strong reaction to it and said, 'My mother is doing this movie.' "
Cassavetes' mother is Emmy-winning actress Gena Rowlands, who plays Mrs. Ritchie, an eccentric yet loving mother to two sons with Down syndrome. Her character also becomes a mentor to a troubled teen who helps tend her garden. It premieres tomorrow.
Johansson worked for a real Mrs. Ritchie in Kelowna, British Columbia. "She and her sons would just take everything in life and make it joyful, just because they decided to — for no other reason. I love that," Rowlands said.
As a teen, pent-up anger constantly led Johansson to pick fights at school. "I just wasn't able to be kind and generous in those days," he said. Meeting Mrs. Ritchie and her sons stopped him from going further down "the wrong road."
Johansson doesn't know the exact date Mrs. Ritchie died, but he knows it was after he went to the University of British Columbia, where he became a basketball star. "It kind of broke my heart that I never got to say goodbye," he says. Doing the movie was his way of saying farewell — and thank you.
Rowlands starred for Showtime in last year's "Charms for the Easy Life" and in 2001's "Wild Iris." Eccentric characters have always been her specialty. She received Oscar nominations for "A Woman Under the Influence" and "Gloria," both directed by her husband, John Cassavetes, who died in 1989.
"When you've played in as many pictures as I have, there are very few stones you have not picked up and looked under," says the 69-year-old actress, who continues to be attracted to "unusual things."
Rowlands chooses projects "that just kind of catch your heart so you feel 'I'd like to spend a few weeks doing that,"' she said. "That's the great thing about acting, it never truly repeats itself." She has since gone to Canada to co-star as "a very bad lady" in the Warner Bros. thriller "Taking Lives."
With Rowlands as star and Nick Cassavetes as co-executive producer, Showtime was willing to step in with money for "Mrs. Ritchie."
James Caan co-stars as a teacher, and Kevin Zegers plays Charlie, the teenager with emotional problems similar to Johansson's. Jeremy Raymond, who does not have Down syndrome, plays one of Mrs. Ritchie's sons. John Speer, who does, plays the other son.
Johansson wanted to direct because he knew the story firsthand. His film "Conversations in Limbo" had screened at festivals, but this is his first feature-length credit.
Johansson, 39, also is an actor. His credits include "Santa Barbara," "Lonesome Dove: The Series" and a small role as an intern in 1997's "She's So Lovely," directed by Nick Cassavetes. He also will play the role of the father to two basketball-playing half brothers in "One Tree Hill," a WB series.
"He was very passionate" about "Mrs. Ritchie". "It meant a lot to him," says Rowlands.
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