Sharp Corner follows a husband and father who becomes obsessed with saving car crash victims wounded on the corner of his new house. At the Q&A, the director explains his thought process behind directing and developing the characterisation of our obsessive protagonist. From auctioned short stories, Buxton remarks that the film was initially intended to be Magnolia-style (Paul Thomas Anderson), but realised the film was 90 pages long. After several drafts, Buxton recognises the potential of the strange script and decides he must be the film-maker for the project. He is hooked, interested in telling a story about obsession, and with that, a motion picture is conceived.
Buxton informs of the four year long intensive process for production: early pre-production begins in 2018-2020, but only resumes after the pandemic for a Fall shoot in 2023. Similarly, Buxton explains the location scouting process as an extensive, difficult search with the final decision being a house built purposefully with controlled road and production as the studio for the project.
On casting the right actor, Buxton claims that Ben Foster, who inhabits the role of our obsessive protagonist, told the director, “Jason, I’m more like this character than you realise.” This identification is perhaps questionable, yet this connection also makes complete sense — the character is simply a reflection of a vulnerable human psyche in trouble.
Professing influence by Michael Haneke and Stanley Kubrick, Buxton explains how he captures a darker, humanist perspective while bridging between psychological thriller and absurdist comedy. Essentially, Buxton adapts and directs the villain origin of an everyday man whose sanity is in peril. Sharp Corner is thus a realistic yet horrific profiling of the consequences of a saviour complex, which can result in the devolvement of relationships with others and ourselves.
Image provided by GFF for press use.