Producer Ryan Kavanaugh could not have been more clear: "It's a love story, guys!"
He was talking about "Brothers," the Jim Sheridan-directed film that has as a key story element the war in Afghanistan. However, the producer stressed, it's not a war movie.
During a post-screening Q&A at the ArcLight Sherman Oaks, part of TheWrap's screening series, Kavanaugh talked about why he made the movie, how Sheridan got involved and the real-life ramifications of releasing such a film as President Obama sends more soldiers to Afghanistan.
Kavanaugh quipped, "Politically, on Thursday, knowing this movie was coming out and knowing we really wanted to get attention, I called Obama and said, 'I know you're against the war, BUT, can you send 30,000 more...?'"
However, he was quick to add that it's not making any political statement.
"It's not a statement of right or wrong, but that that's part of what makes America, this is part of what makes our culture, and this is happening. And there's so much more than just troops are or are not going overseas," he said.
"This is a movie I greenlit for no other reason than pure emotion," he said. While doing his "normal Sunday reading," he said, "Something happened to me that has never happened before, which is I was crying when I finished a script. I said to my girlfriend at the time, 'I'm about to do the stupidest thing I've ever done, I'm about to greenlight a movie based on pure emotion.'
"There was no one attached, no stars, no director - I actually hadn't even seen the original yet. And it spoke to me as a story of love and family and relevance to today, something that most of us don't ever have to deal with or associate with, but did it in a way we all could appreciate and understand, and in some way would touch us."
"Brothers" is something of a remake of Susanne Bier's "Brodre." It focuses on a young couple, played by Natalie Portman and Tobey Maguire, dealing with his redeployment to Afghanistan, and his relationship with his just-out-of-jail brother, played by Jake Gyllenhaal.
"At the heart of it, it's not really a war movie," Kavanaugh declared. "It's a movie about family, it's a movie about how far would you go? It's about really forcing you to look inside yourself and examine, could I go that dark, that deep, for people I love, would I do that?"
Some other points he made:
-- Jim Sheridan was the only director he considered.
"I had just seen 'In America' for, I think, the third time, or the second time, a week prior," Kavanaugh said.
