By Kilian Melloy

Lloyd Eyre-Morgan and Neil Ely drew deeply from personal experience in creating and co-directing their first feature film, Departures. “t was quite a therapeutic sort of project,” Eyre-Morgan says during a recent Zoom interview. “It’s very personal for us.”

Eyre-Morgan wrote the screenplay and also stars as Benji, a young gay man living in Manchester who decides to take a cheap flight to Amsterdam for the weekend and, when the flight is delayed, meets the handsome Jake (David Tag) at an airport pub. Pints and conversation follow, with Benji hoping that Jake will turn out to be “a little bit gay.” He gets his wish, and the trip becomes the first in a string of getaways.

Benji agrees to abide by Jake’s expectations that their trips together are strictly for fun. Quarrels erupt when Benji can’t contain his romantic impulses, and a darker side of Jake emerges. As the film unfolds in flashback, a stunning secret that Jake harbors eventually comes to light. The film shares the characters’ complex layering: Funny and emotionally acute, it portrays a sexual assault at one point that deepens, rather than dilutes, audience sympathies as we watch Benji struggle in the aftermath of the relationship.

 Comedic, traumatic, and poignant by turns, Departures is premiering in UK and Irish cinemas this week. It’s a film to watch out for, as it finds its way to American shores. First landing: New York’s IFC Center on April 29.

QulturVultur: Departures doesn’t feel like a small production, and it’s great that you filmed on location in Amsterdam. What was that like?

Lloyd Eyre-Morgan: It was a bit of a whirlwind. We were there for 24 hours, so it was very much run and gun, filming a lot of it on iPhones. It was guerilla filmmaking. Very little was shot in Amsterdam; it was a couple of exteriors and a scene at a river, and that was that was it. The rest of it, we shot in Manchester and pretended it was Amsterdam.

QulturVultur: The script draws on your own experiences, especially yours, Neil. Did you ever fear it was too personal?

Neil Ely: I think because me and Lloyd have had a 13-year relationship, and we’ve had a very personal relationship and also work relationship, there was a lot of trust there with each other. The sexual assault scene is from my own personal experience. The sexual assault scene originally was meant to have a big musical number, because when that happened to me that’s what I did: I was singing in my head. We decided to put that in there, but when we watched it, it just didn’t quite work. Then Lloyd came up with the really clever idea to [depict] disassociation, with lots of different images flicking through Benji’s mind while it was happening. I was a bit like, “This is as close as it can be to what I felt like the experience was.” If I was gonna ever put that on screen and on paper, I would have only ever done it with Lloyd overseeing that.

QulturVultur: People are inevitably going to talk about Pillion when they discuss the movie. 

Lloyd Eyre-Morgan: I feel like they’re very different films. With Departures, I feel like it’s about toxic relationships in general, rather than just LGBT [relationships]. A lot of straight people have watched [the film] and come to us at the end and been like, “I really related to that. I’ve been in a situation like Benji and Jake.”

Neil Ely: I think it’s two people that have fetishism desires, and one is a top, and the other one’s submissive. Departures isn’t particularly about fetish, and it isn’t necessarily about sub and dominant in the bedroom.

QulturVultur: The movie was filmed in bits and pieces over time. How hard was it to keep the focus and keep the tone consistent?

Lloyd Eyre-Morgan: Because we were editing it in the gaps, we were always still in it. I went and edited what we’d just shot, and by the time we’d got that in a place where we felt it was tight, we’d go on to shoot the next bit. It was really useful, because sometimes we’d watch bits and go, “I feel like we’re missing this,” and then we’d write it into the next block because we’d have this month in between to adjust stuff as we were watching it. I think it benefited the filming process. There was never originally a flashback sequence for [Jake] that went back to the ’90s, but halfway through filming we felt that his character needed more development. We needed to show where he’d come from. So that came in really late, that wasn’t in the initial script.

QulturVultur: Lloyd, since you also star in the film, did you step back from the directorial mindset and let Neil take that over while you were in front of the camera?

Lloyd Eyre-Morgan: I left my performance to Neil. With some of the technical and the visual stuff, I was sometimes took the lead. It would depend on what day it was, and what we were shooting. We’ve found a rhythm with it where it happens organically. 

Neil Ely: We’ve known each other so long, and it’s so many different ways, that we can bicker and just kind of know that whatever’s best for the film, one of us will sit down and be like, “Okay, you’re right. Actually, we will do it like this.”

Lloyd Eyre-Morgan: We pre-planned a lot.

Neil Ely: I played a few tricks on Lloyd performance-wise. I call them tricks. Other people call it torture.

Lloyd Eyre-Morgan: Putting vinegar in the wine bottle.

[Laughter]

Neil Ely: I knew how to get an emotional performance out Lloyd. I knew what we needed to discuss before the performance. That would give Lloyd that mindset, and we trust each other in that way.

QulturVultur: You mentioned the flashback scene into the ’90s for Jake. His aunt is an amazing concoction. In the narration she’s called “a gay icon,” which is true if what you mean by that is Edwina Monsoon on ketamine or something. 

Lloyd Eyre-Morgan: We love Kerry Howard. She’s in Him and Her, which is one of our favorite TV shows. We’d wanted to work with her for years and years, so we sent her the script and then she came down and did loads of really hilarious improv, which made it into the film. She got what me and Neil like from camp characters; she got what we found hilarious. We were just laughing at the monitors.

QulturVultur: Benji and Jake are both complex characters, but Jake is a real piece of work. At the same time, though, you really do feel for him.

Neil Ely: I definitely recognize David’s character in previous relationships [I’ve had], and I suppose I can only be empathetic to someone who has got to an age in life, and [has the things going on that Jake has]. David is a great actor, and he’s a very empathetic guy…. I do very much empathize with Jake [as] David plays [him].

QulturVultur: How did David Tag come to you? He is so perfect as Jake.

Lloyd Eyre-Morgan: Well, he initially didn’t, did he? We had probably about 18 self-tapes for it, and we weren’t sure if David would be right for it. And then we got him to do a self-tape, and then it was no question. He got it straight [off] — it was one of the best self-tapes I’ve ever seen. 

QulturVultur: You start the film at the at the end, and then you wind back to explain how Jake and Benji end up where they have. Was that your intention from the start, or did that structure suggest itself as the film progressed?

Lloyd Eyre-Morgan: We filmed the last scene first, so we did start at the end, but editing wise we put that [structure] in later because it felt like David was introduced really late when we watched early cuts. It wasn’t quite clear that [Benji] was going through a break, getting over him…. And also, I feel like when someone’s processing a toxic relationship and grief, you don’t do it chronologically. It also made sense with the way that we thought the rest of the film should go.

QulturVultur: Tell me about that music video that plays over the credits.

Neil Ely: Originally, the music video was meant to come during the sexual assault scene, but we didn’t feel like it worked. But we had so much fun filming it, and absolutely loved working with Elliot Kennedy, who wrote and produced the song. He wrote and produced a lot of the Spice Girls songs. So, it was a bit like, “We can’t waste this, because it’s amazing.” We love musical numbers, as well. We have a thing now where we put musical number in most things that we do.

QulturVultur: Thank you so much for a positive representation of different body types. it’s a very healthy thing to see somebody as they are and have them be accepted in love and called — even by your toxic boyfriend — be called a 10.

Neil Ely: We’ve had quite a lot of people reach out and say, “It’s really refreshing to see a gay character on screen that isn’t six pack and pecs.” I think that’s also what’s really interesting about Jake, that he finds Benji beautiful. I suppose that element is probably what keeps Benji in that relationship, because although it’s toxic and [Jake is] kind of borderline abusive, [it] is actually quite empowering to him [when Jake is] like, “I think you look great.” I think he’s genuine with that. 

But, yeah, there is a lot of body shaming within the gay community. With Grindr and Tik Tok and Instagram, there’s this kind of idea that we all have to be gym bunnies. And now we have all these apps that, even if you’re not gym fit, you can press the button and it makes you look like you are. So, there’s this idea that we’re all sexy hunks, and it can become really unhealthy.

QulturVultur: You’ve finished filming your second feature. Can you say a little bit about what we can look forward to with that?

Neil Ely: It doesn’t have a musical number. 

QulturVultur: No! There’s still time, isn’t there?

Lloyd Eyre-Morgan: You never know!

[Laughter]

Lloyd Eyre-Morgan: It’s a LGBT sci fi, Black Mirror-esque love story, so, very different to Departures.

QulturVultur: If I overlooked anything, I should have asked her if there’s something you’re dying to be sure gets into this interview, please feel free to throw it out there.

Neil Ely: Just dates for screenings really would be great, if possible.

Departures is currently on screens in the UK and Ireland. It opens in New York on April 29. For more information, visit the film’s website on the Strand Releasing website.

Watch the trailer below: