“Sh*t gets really messy when it gets real.” That statement can be applied to pretty much anything in the world … but in this context, actress, writer and director Lake Bell is talking about marriage. “When it does, you have a choice to do the work and stick with it, and I think that’s a very brave path,” Bell told Paste when we spoke with her about her new film, I Do … Until I Don’t.
That’s pretty much the story of this flick in a nutshell: finding the strength to work through the tough times of a marriage when all these outside forces—including a documentary filmmaker—are encouraging you to bail.
“If you’re in a vortex and were married and focused solely on that person, then marriage wouldn’t be as hard,” Bell, who wrote, starred in and directed the movie, told Paste. “But nowadays there are so many distractions from apps and advertisements and media peppered all over the place that it becomes really hard to stay focused. So you have to work even harder.”
Bell has been happily married for four years, but when she started writing this movie she was single and cynical. Which is made obvious within the first five minutes of this movie about three couples (Bell’s husband is played by Ed Helms, and the other couples are played by Amber Heard and Wyatt Cenac, and Paul Reiser and Mary Steenburgen) in different stages of disarray exposing their relationships for a documentary filmmaker named Vivian who thinks the tradition of marriage is outdated. In fact, Vivian (played by Dolly Wells) is proposing a “seven-year contract with an option to renew” instead of “till death do us part.”
“Any time I write something, it’s deeply personal,” Bell admits. “This [script] is particularly sensitive and intimate given that it’s about relationships and commitment. When I first started writing this, I came from a pretty jaded and cynical place. I was investigating out of need in a therapeutic way; I was really curious to unpack what it means to be with someone in a committed relationship.” Bell’s curiosity can be credited to the divorce she was surrounded by as a child. “I’d seen so much divorce—I’d been part of divorce as a kid. And my friends and family. It seemed so normal that you would be either separated or divorced. And that we were all doomed.”
The end product is a surprisingly witty and heartwarming tale about coming and working together. You can thank Scott Campbell for that smile spreading across your face as the final credits roll. “Really I was very lucky that while I was writing this, I met Scott, my husband; he has taught me so much about relationships and commitment and the bravery it takes to not bail when things get rough. That is at the end of the day how we effectively evolve,” Bell says. She’s learned, through making this movie and her relationship, that your world expands when you get married—contrary to what many, including the film’s driving force Vivian, believe. “People often say, when you get married, everything ends, that your world gets so small, you can’t do anything or go anywhere,” she says. “Tig Notaro recently said to me, ‘I think my world expanded when I got married, because it’s like, now you found your partner in the world. And you get to go and live now. So now you get to do all the stuff.’” Bell agrees with her. “I think your world gets bigger and the best advice when it comes to marriage, is that it’s really important not to lose yourself. It’s a privilege to be able to continue to take care of yourself. You take care of your brain and your body, just as much as your partner will do the same.” If that means therapy, that’s more than okay—Bell calls it “respectful maintenance.” “And that’s where you can meet eye to eye and you can walk through life together. You don’t become one … that’s totally unsustainable, and that’s not why you fell in love with each other, Bell continues. “You fell in love with each other because of who you are, that’s what he loves or she loves, and vice versa.”
It’s safe to say you’ll learn a little something about the How to Make it in America actress from watching these relatable scenes unfold. “I feel like the movie at large, the overarching feeling of the movie, is my own personal path,” she says, referencing her journey to learning that marriage can have a happy ending. “The feeling that you have in the movie, where you start in that jaded place and then you are convinced and massaged into this feeling of, ‘wait a minute, all of a sudden I’m super happy and I want to kiss my husband!’ It starts from a place of, ‘oh, we’re doomed,’ and that’s where I started this investigation.”