When British Joy Wilkinson first wrote the screenplay for her thriller, 7 Keys, she was convinced that it would do well as a high-concept, star-studded blockbuster. Centered on a man and a woman who evolve a meet cute into a full on penchant for burglary, she was able to mold it from a ground-view London story to glossy studio fodder. But it never got made. “It did well for me,” Wilkinson told Geek Vibes Nation from her office in London. “It got me an American agent, which was great, but I increasingly felt like it wasn’t going to happen.” So, she continued on in her career until, looking for a directing vehicle, she brushed off an old draft and got back to work. “It was this absolute Damascene moment of ‘I’m meant to make this, and I meant to make it this way.’ From then on, I felt unstoppable.”
Damascene is an apt way to describe Wilkinson’s motivation, as Wilkinson’s feature debut – premiering at SXSW this week under the Film & TV Festival’s “Visions” banner – is embedded in concepts of myth. At one point, the front page of Wilkinson’s script featured a quote from Gilgamesh, one she recited with great pride: “From the great heaven she set her mind on the great below. Who having gone to those depths could hope to come up again?” Her protagonist, Lena, is inspired by Salome, who seduces John the Baptist only to later be killed for it. Her dance of the seven veils is, perhaps, a part of the seven keys, one for each place Daniel, Lena’s date, has lived in during his time in London. The further they journey along his life, the deeper they descend into a tragedy as intense and wide-ranging as any good myth.
Joy Wilkinson spoke about all of this, and more, in this exclusive conversation with GVN, condensed and edited for clarity.
I have to tell you, I do not remember the last time a film caught me as off guard as this movie did. I was so taken aback! It was such a thrilling experience.
Good, that’s what we want.
I’m really excited for the SXSW audience especially to really sink their teeth into this. Where did the nugget of this story start? I have to imagine, based on the places the film goes, that where you started and where we are now are two very different places.
Oh, gosh yes. It’s been a journey, like Lena and Daniel’s but less horrific.
[laughs]
The idea for the film started a very long time ago, being obsessed with other people’s homes and property and keys, knowing that there was a story in that and always trying to find a form for it. I have this friend who’s a psychotherapist and she once talked about people at opposite ends of the emotional spectrum being quite well suited to each other – people who can’t feel very much and people who feel too much – and suddenly, I thought, “those are the people who’ve got the keys.” Then, the script kind of poured out. I had come up with it to be very small and makeable in London, but actually, because it was such a high-concept idea, a lot of people said, “No, you should make it bigger and set it in the States and it should be this big, glossy thriller.” I did write that version and it did well for me; it got me an American agent, which was great, but I increasingly felt like it wasn’t going to happen. In the meantime, I was building my own directing career and realized I had this idea that was really makeable if I just took it back and retooled it to what it was always meant to be. It was this absolute Damascene moment of “I’m meant to make this, and I meant to make it this way.” From then on, I felt unstoppable, and it all came together. Now I can’t imagine it at all being that other way that was guns and car chases and everything.
That is so crazy to hear. This is such an on-the-ground London film.
Yes, exactly.
It’s weird for me to imagine American stars walking around California doing this movie.
Exactly.
Staying on the topic of the seven keys, I’m curious to know where that specifically came from and where you found the focus on wealth disparity and property.
I came to London when I was 18. I’d been down before and fell in love with the mix of people but became very aware very quickly of the wealth [gap]. You can have these multi-million-pound homes and then you have a council block at the end of it. Those things sit side by side, and people fall through the cracks all the time. Having moved around the city and lived in different places, I felt like a whole mythic journey could happen here. There were lots of mythical influences [for 7 Keys], like Salome and the Dance of the Seven Veils where she reveals different levels to her, and that goes horribly wrong. There’s also a myth in Gilgamesh of the character Inanna who goes down to the underworld and through seven gates. She divests herself of something at each gate and is reborn. Without intentionally referencing those, I have the spirit of this modern goddess in London having a huge epic journey. As you can probably tell from the film, I like a lot to happen. [laughs] I think we should be able to make genre movies where a lot happens and you go on a real ride and you come out feeling what you felt, which is ‘I’ve really been through it.’ That’s why I go to the cinema, to come out of myself and go on an adventure.
Your saturated use of color is also very noticeable. Can you break down how you decided which sequence would be seen through which color?
That harks back to what I was saying about the characters being on opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. I wanted a visual way to look at that and also aural ways to look at that. I’ve got a whole grid [in my notes] with colors, with what they’re doing at each level of [their journey] and even what genre they’re in at each level. We had different colors on set; each place has props and costumes that go through the colors, but it was in the grade that I wanted to push it. I thought, “I don’t want this to feel like a subtle thing that somebody with a PhD might come up with. Let’s go for it.” That’s the tenor of the film; go straight into it, we’re not in kitchen sink realism here, we’re going down the rabbit hole.
I would be remiss not to speak about your two stars because they are so incredible. What’s very unique about them is that they’re just as interesting individually as they are when you put them together. I would love to hear about how you found both Emma McDonald and Billy Postlethwaite individually as talents and then what it was like colliding them on set.
Emma was actually in a play that I wrote called The Sweet Science of Bruising in 2018. She came in to audition and I had one of those “who is that” moments where she was making choices and I was excited by them. From that moment, I hoped she’d be Lena one day. Then, Billy was in a production of Macbeth with her. He was playing Macbeth, and she was playing Lady Macbeth. I was like, “Oh, hello.” I saw him in the bar afterward and he is an absolutely lovely, sweet guy but has that energy about him where he’s set apart from us civilians around him and we’re all riveted watching him. I knew that I wanted them to be Lena and Daniel, and I was biding my time. I did a short film with them called The Everlasting Club, just to soften them up. When Emma was back in Britain after doing Moonhaven, I managed to catch her and send her the script. She read it on the same day and sent me a text in all caps saying, “WE MUST DO THIS FILM.” Then, with that, I managed to lure Billy in. We spent some days workshopping the script together and they were very involved in developing those characters from what was in the script. Everything on a production like this, you need that sort of actor who is willing to roll their sleeves up and make it work. I got incredibly lucky, but I also feel like having been on that journey with the script, it ended up with exactly the right people.
That Macbeth and Lady Macbeth thing blows my mind. That’s very reminiscent of the film.
Well, you said it so I can say it. It’s a Shakespearean scale, having that huge character arc within the drama. We did movement workshops where we put the script aside and tracked those seven levels through and how they affected each other so that we had this shorthand when you get on set and suddenly, you’re in Key 3 and you were doing Key 6 yesterday. It was really vital to do all of that groundwork so that, when you’re on a film that’s tightly scheduled and tightly budgeted like this, you can just hit the ground running.
The SXSW audience is a really unique audience to be the first to see this film. Going into the festival, what are your feelings? What are your hopes?
Obviously, I was so excited when I heard that we got in. My producer, Cassandra Sigsgaard, had a film there in 2015 called Nina Forever, which was a twisted, horror fairy tale, so I knew the tenor of the festival and that the fans there are awesome. I knew it would be the right place for 7 Keys, but to actually get into it was mind-blowing. What I hear is that it’s a real place for movie fans. My film is the sort of film that you want to be with the right people because it won’t be other people’s cup of tea. If you’re the sort of person who doesn’t like feeling on edge watching a film, if you want to just relax and not be stressed, then it’s probably not the film for you, but there are people who will be completely the opposite way and there are moments in the film made for them. I want to be in that audience and hear when those moments register because I feel like it will be my crowd. I’ve always been a genre person and I’ve always been a person who goes to a forbidden planet and hangs out and goes “These are my people.” So, I hope my people come along and get it and tell each other about it because that’s what you want at the end of the day. You’re telling a story to somebody; you’re not telling it to yourself. I want my crowd to come.
7 Keys will premiere as part of the Visions section of the 2024 SXSW Film & TV Festival. It is currently seeking distribution.
Larry Fried is a filmmaker, writer, and podcaster based in New Jersey. He is the host and creator of the podcast “My Favorite Movie is…,” a podcast dedicated to helping filmmakers make somebody’s next favorite movie. He is also the Visual Content Manager for Special Olympics New Jersey, an organization dedicated to competition and training opportunities for athletes with intellectual disabilities across the Garden State.
