Dog saves man in The Drop

It marks the first film written by best-selling author Dennis Lehane, who wrote the bestsellers Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, and Shutter Island, which have been made into award-winning films.

The name Lehane has become synonymous with high-quality crime stories set in low-class places, and he now delivers an equally riveting mob mystery that is based on his short story, Animal Rescue.

Tom Hardy delivers a moving and powerful performance that will break your heart as a bartender who slings drinks in his Cousin Marv's (James Gandolfini in his final performance) bar and looks the other way whenever Brooklyn crime bosses use the place as a temporary bank for their ill-gotten gains. He keeps to himself, attending Mass daily at the old neighbourhood parish church, but never taking communion.Bob's simple life becomes much more complicated when he discovers a battered pit bull puppy in a trash can.

An unexpected attraction

Turning to his neighbour Nadia (Noomi Rapace from Girl with the Golden Tattoo) for help, he nurses the puppy back to health as their mutual concern for the dog sparks an unexpected attraction between them.

But when Eric Deeds (Matthias Schoenaerts), the dog's original owner and Nadia's abusive ex-boyfriend, tries to reclaim both of them, and a robbery at the bar puts Bob in the crosshairs of the Chechen crime boss who owns it, Bob is forced to face the shocking truth about the people he thinks he knows best-including himself.

Lehane initially set out to write a novel, but he never got past the first chapter, which became a short story. He was somewhat surprised when Chernin Entertainment approached him about making the tale into a movie. In fact, he was already been considering adapting it into his first screenplay.

"It was the only book I've ever started that kicked out on me," he said. "I put it in a drawer and never went back to it, but I kept thinking about Bob, the puppy he rescues and the woman he meets. I think it stuck with me all this time because I was fascinated by the idea of loneliness. We almost never speak about how devastating it can be. I'm of the belief that it kills more people than cancer. So I started from the idea of one guy, Bob, who is exceptionally lonely."

"The short story was very insular," Lehane adds. "There was Bob, Nadia and Eric Deeds. Cousin Marv was a minor character who evolved into a major part. I had just the bare bones of the plot. I think of the short story as the bud and the movie as the flower in full bloom."

The integrity of the original vision

Lehane worked on the first draft of the script by himself, writing throughout the summer of 2010. "What was unique about the experience was that I was never shoved into a conversation about how to make the film more palatable to a larger audience. It was always about the integrity of the original vision, which was to make a film about damaged people trying to repair their lives."

One of the priorities was to develop some of the characters more, especially Cousin Marv. "As soon as Jimmy Gandolfini was cast, I actually wrote more lines because I knew there's a certain pitch to my dialogue with certain characters. It's extremely hard for most actors and Jimmy was the sweet spot. I couldn't have dreamed of a better Cousin Marv. The last thing I did on the script was to flesh him out more and give him extra lines because I knew he could handle it. That was a joy," says Lehane.

The story is, as Lehane points out, still quite simple. "A guy finds a dog. The dog allows him to reclaim a part of his life. But at the exact same moment, outside forces press in on him.

"Bob made a decision 10 years ago to shut himself away from humanity, from feeling," says Lehane. "Suddenly something begins to open up in him. He meets this woman. He starts to rejoin the human race. The largest dramatic question of the film is: Can Bob really be rescued?"

"Like most of the people in the film, he is chasing something that's already in the rear-view mirror," the writer continues. "They're trying to get back to a self that doesn't exist anymore. That idea fascinated me as I was writing the script. I think the audience will feel an emotional connection with the characters that leads them to some sort of emotional truth about their own lives, about the moments when they seem to be stuck in gear. The people who successfully navigate those waters are the ones who will ultimately reach a happy ending."

Hardy sees Bob as a different kind of anti-hero. "He's unassuming and therefore underestimated," the actor says. "You never see him coming. The guy's an everyman with a big heart and a long story that he would never burden you with, because he prefers silence. He leads an ordinary life."

If you are looking for a film that shines a light on humanity. The Drop delivers on all levels.

Read more about The Drop and other new releases at www.writingstudio.co.za.