VOD Spotlight: "How Do You Know"

Written and directed by James L. Brooks (As Good as It Gets, Terms of Endearment), How Do You Know has Brooks’ signature look at lives in transition. The title refers to that moment when people realize they are truly in love but there is far more going on in this film.

“We all have, at some point, a feeling that everything we’ve depended on we can’t depend on anymore. And when that happens, the only thing we have left is love,” says Brooks. “You can think your life is terrible, and then he or she walks in and it’s not terrible anymore. That’s it—love is our saving grace.”

Brooks says that the project began simply. “I was driving by some ball fields, soccer fields, and filled with women and girls, all ages, and I thought, it’s been a while since we’ve seen a female jock heroine.” After speaking with Reese Witherspoon and getting her to agree to the role of Lisa, a softball star cut from her team, Brooks spent a year talking to great female athletes on what Lisa’s life would be like.

“There’s maybe five minutes of softball in the movie, but it informs the whole character,” says Brooks. “I have a rule in research: the third time I hear something, it’s generally true. This time, every female athlete I spoke to said that it takes another athlete to understand how much time they have to give to their sport. They can’t go out, they can’t go to the party, because they’re playing, they’re honing their skills. It’s very hard for a man to understand that if he doesn’t share it.”

Which led to Brooks creating Matty (Owen Wilson), a narcissistic baseball star in a relationship with Lisa because they understand each other. But when she is cut from the team and meets George (Paul Rudd), a business executive who is the target of a federal investigation, she is forced to look at the choices she has made and evaluate where her life is going.

Even though Witherspoon would appear playing ball for only a few moments in the film, she trained with legendary UCLA women’s softball coach Sue Enquist for months. “I’d work with her three days a week for two or three hours, just working on basic skills like throwing, catching, batting, posture, stuff like that,” the actress says. “But there was also a different aspect of it — it was a study of a completely different kind of person. I’d never really known many athletes in my life, so jumping into their world and learning how they wake up, what their day is like, how much they work out, how much of a personal life they have, what their college experience was like, really informed my character. Their relationships with their teammates are paramount in their lives.”

“How Do You Know” is now showing on Video On Demand. Check your cable system for availability.

_____________________