After Ed Burns earned his crown in the indie film world when The Brothers McMullen won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 1995, the New York City filmmaker remained true to his creative M.O., if you will.
Sure, his characters might find love before the ending credits roll, but not without a divorce and an affair along the way. With earlier films like Sidewalks of New York and Purple Violets, Burns proved his understanding of how to portray real family and relationship dynamics on screen.
“I’ve always been sort of attracted to, let’s say, character-driven pieces with romance. What I’ve tried to do with my romantic dramas or dramedies is have them steeped a little bit more in the real world,” Burns said.
Thirty years after The Brothers McMullen, Burns delivers the perfect sequel with The Family McMullen, set to stream on HBO Max on December 5th. With new characters played by Juliana Canfield and Tracee Ellis Ross joining original cast members like Connie Britton and Mike McGlone, Burns revisits the McMullens after cancer, divorce, and kids have flown the coop.
For Connie Britton, the reunion felt like being home again.
“It was like no time had passed. I feel like I could hear her [Molly McMullen] voice in my head immediately, like I know it so well. Shooting The Brothers McMullen was life-changing for me. That was my big break. I know it was for Eddie too. There’s something that was so formative about the experience of that that will never go away. So stepping back onto the set together, stepping back into this character, and working with Eddie— it’s like in my bones. I also feel so much gratitude to have the opportunity to do it, because without that first movie, we’re not here today. We don’t have the careers that we have today. So yeah, there’s something that is always gonna feel like home,” Britton said.
Sitting down with Britton and Burns, they both described filming together again as a collaborative effort.
“Fortunately I’ve been lucky enough to work with a lot of these actors a number of times before, Connie included. Connie and I have a great collaboration, and there are moments where she will say, ‘Eddie, I’m not sure about this moment here. Can we think about it that way?’ And that started from the very first draft of the script all the way through our last day of shooting,” Burns added.
Burns does a fine job of weaving ties and memories from The Brothers McMullen into this latest sequel, from each character’s VO narrative to using the same house the brothers grew up in. It turns out the characters came calling Burns back about fifteen years ago.
“It’s funny— 14, 15 years ago I saw Richard Linklater’s second sequel to Before Sunrise, Before Midnight. Before Sunrise was at Sundance with us back in ’95. I never even thought of doing a McMullen sequel, but after seeing his film, I thought, I should— why don’t I do this?
It was coming up on the 20th anniversary, so I thought it was perfect timing. I tried to write a script and couldn’t figure out what to do with those characters. It wasn’t until five years later that I read an article about 20-somethings being forced to move back home because of the shortage of affordable housing, moving back home to live with their parents in order to save money to buy their first house.
I was like, okay, that’s my way into the sequel: it’ll be Barry— kids in their twenties forced to move back in with him. Once I had that, I thought, well, since we made the film, Connie has become such a big star, and Connie and I have remained really good friends and worked a bunch of times, so Connie’s gotta be one of the leads in the movie,” Burns said.
And just like that, Burns made Connie’s character a widow; the sister-in-law McMullen three decades later.
Similar to the original film, each character is facing a challenging transition in life; turning a new chapter. Even Burns’ character Barry (Finbar) McMullen revisits an old flame with Nina (Tracee Ellis Ross). The on-screen chemistry is palpable and will leave hopeful and hopeless romantics smiling ear to ear.
I always admired Burns’ approach to flawed romance, as much as I loved Nora Ephron and Nancy Meyers rom-coms. Also a fan of Ephron and Meyers’ work, Burns even found space to reference When Harry Met Sally in the film.
“I was lucky enough to work with Nancy once. I definitely wanted to lean into the more mainstream, bigger rom-com stuff, while also making sure that they all felt like real people and those were real situations,” Burns said.
From independent filmmaking to today’s AI- and SFX-driven industry led by mega studios, Burns has managed to remain loyal to the tone he found years ago.
“We were fortunate that over the last 30 years it got massive, and there was a lot of work around for everybody, which was a blessing for all of us who love to do this. But I would say: it’s never easy. It’s always been hard. If you absolutely love it and you need to do this thing, then you have to jump in, keep grinding, keep working, and know your career is a series of ups and downs. I’ve had periods where I couldn’t get a film financed for years. You just have to go make another low-budget movie again and hope you get into a festival and get some notice again,” Burns said as advice to aspiring filmmakers.
Britton’s advice is to “keep telling stories. It’s so important. The way the world is changing right now, especially with AI, sometimes we feel like there’s no value to that anymore. The more that actors or filmmakers recognize that telling honest stories about what they know, knowing what their own voice is and what they have to contribute, will always have value. We actually need it. All of us need it. So keep going,” she added.
Stream The Family McMullen on HBO Max this holiday season (available Dec 5).
Watch the full in person interview here:
