'A Tightrope Walk:' 'Emergency' Writer K.D. Davila and Director Carey Williams Tell All On Balancing Entertainment and Information in Exclusive Interview
Emergency is one of the most hilarious and important films to come out in recent history.
The premise is that of an end-of-college comedy, following Sean (RJ Cyler), Kunle, (Donald Elise Watkins), and Carlos, (Sebastian Chacon) as they try to embark on an epic senior year adventure.
As these movies normally go, that plan of perfection is quickly dreailed. However, it is not derailed in the typical way.
Through a series of random, impossible-to-forsee circumstances, the film takes a sharp turn into an intelligent and impactful dissection of racism and police brutality in the modern day.
Crafting this perfect balance of comedy and cultural commentary is no easy feat. We were able to talk to the film's writer, K.D. Davila, and the film's director, Carey Williams, about the efforts taken to strike this fine balance.
Emergency began as a short, and Williams expressed that he was orginally daunted by all that needed to be dealt with in this story.
"For me, that was a thing that initially scared me about this project when it was a short was that it was tackling this through comedy, but I quickly thought, 'No, that's actually what makes it special.' It was actually a unique and refreshing sort of way into present that comentary."
The screenwriter, Davila, then went on to share the exciting but challenging expreience she had tackling this storyline from the writing perspective.
"This is obviously a topic that is– it is difficult to talk about a lot of times, and it is difficult to personalize. We wanted to be able to talk about the absurdity that we live in a society where people of color have to do this calculation of, 'Am I more afraid of this emergency in front of me or of calling 9-1-1 for help?'
"Like you have to do that, that calculation of, 'How am I being percieved right now, and is there anyway that I could be percieved in the wrong way because if there's a misunderstanding I could die. The stakes are high. And we are poking fun at the absurdity of that fact of our society...In many ways the movie is a comedy of errors, but obviously, because the stakes are so high, it's also a thriller-horror movie."
The horror-thriller element of the movie is strong - and it is not the first film in the last few months to come out as a comedy with major horror elements, emphasizing the striking but often unnoticed similarities between the two genres. Through this artful combination of the levity and fear, the film shares a powerful lesson that manages to not feel like a lecture.
As Willaims pointed out, "Comedy is a good way to get that message in."
"Without beating you over the head with it," Davila quickly followed (proving the sentence-finishing cohesion of their partnership.)
Emergency is in theaters now, and will be on Prime Video on May 27th.
