Stir Q&A: Me + Her writer-star Michelle Addison talks motherhood and letting go

In new film at Vancouver Short Film Festival, the well-known influencer and stylist digs movingly into what it means to raise a teen girl these days

By Janet Smith

Michelle Addison and Sasha Warner in “Me + Her”.

The Vancouver Short Film Festival runs from June 13 to 15 at SFU Woodward’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts. “Me + Her” screens in Program Two on June 14 at 1 pm

IT’S A RITE OF passage captured in countless Hollywood movies: a teenage girl attends her first big house party. But the twist in the new Vancouver-made short film “Me + Her” is that the story is told from the perspective of the girl’s mother.

Debuting at the upcoming Vancouver Short Film Festival and directed by Alex Caulfield, the moving, bittersweet study is the deeply personal brainchild of screenwriter (and mother to a teen) Michelle Addison, who also stars. She plays Ellen, a long-recovering alcoholic whose carefully controlled suburban lifestyle is disrupted when her 13-year-old daughter demands to go to a house party. As Ellen tries to negotiate a connection with a daughter fighting for independence, she’s haunted by traumatic flashbacks of her own unsupervised youth during the grunge-rebellious mid-’90s.

Addison, who has appeared in everything from Family Law to Aliens in America, is also one of the country’s best-known fashion influencers—a skilled stylist who can throw together a dozen dazzling travel outfits in a split second on her Insta feed. Stir connected with the Vancouverite to talk about moms in mainstream media, the pressure to be cool, and how motherhood is ultimately about letting go.

You’ve said you were inspired to write a film from the mom’s, instead of the teen’s, perspective. What motivated you to do that from what you were seeing out there in mainstream movies and TV?

I wasn’t seeing the mom-teen experience reflected in mainstream media. I wanted to address the fact that so many mothers experience situations that bring up their own fears, insecurities, and traumas while trying to be a good parent. We either suppress them and the energy is felt or we react in ways that have nothing to do with our teens. If we are lucky we can heal ourselves with deeper understanding of ourselves and our children as separate individuals. 

Benjamin Ayres, Michelle Addison, and Sasha Warner in “Me + Her”.

You’re a mother yourself. How do you feel about this pressure to let go of our own pasts to raise kids, and is there too much striving to be the “cool” or perfect mom Ellen (kind of) wants to be?

This could be an overstatement, but I think that a lot of mothers want to be a different kind of mom than what we had growing up. My mom was amazing, but I can’t help but try and do things a little differently. Take the good and course-correct the bad. There is so much pressure on women these days to be empathic, to be soft enough to have your daughter lean on you but strong enough to have boundaries, to volunteer at school but also be at work on-time—oh, and maintaining a fitness routine, cooking healthy meals, and staying ahead of the latest fashion trends because God forbid you give up and wear sweatsuits. It’s exhausting. Listen, I am a cool mom and my closet is full of amazing outfits and still I was not cool to my daughter. Ha! She wanted me to be a bit more low-key. We can never win. I was also a bit of a free spirit in my teens and I was terrified of my own daughter being “wild”. I realized writing, creating, and working on this film how much I needed to let go and let her be the person that she wanted to be. This film was healing for me. 

There are interesting parallels in the film between growing up in the ’90s and growing up now. What do you think has changed for teens?

Yes, I agree there are parallels. I think what’s changed is, obviously, social media and its effect on growing up. In the ’90s, there was so much bliss in not knowing what party you were missing out on or waiting till your mom got off the phone to call your friends. I mean, imagine waiting an hour or more to use the phone. The immediacy of everything has drastically changed our culture. The find-my-location aspect of our phones has kept parents constantly in tracking mode, for good or bad... I am not sure. 

Has your work as a stylist and influencer affected the way you write or act in any way?

I think working in different creative fields has definitely influenced my work as a filmmaker. Since this was my first film [as a screenwriter], I relied on a team of people that knew what to do and how to get a film made. Our director, Alex Caulfield, had just finished their first feature and they helped me make a lot of critical decisions. Micah Kelpin, our producer, was invaluable in getting this off the ground, as was Julia Green. I think, visually, my next project will be allowing myself to have more bravery in embracing and trusting my unique creative vision, just like I do with my styling work. More to come…

What would you tell your teenage self?

Exactly what Ellen tells younger Ellen: you are not broken, you are loved. And maybe a bit more... You are becoming.  

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