Two Norfolk brothers' film shows locally

Two brothers from Norfolk fought to make their movie their way.

The result, "Cherry," comes home Sunday for its local premiere at 7 p.m. at the Naro Expanded Cinema in Norfolk.

The coming-of-age comedy produced by Matthew Fine was written and directed by his brother, Jeffrey Fine.

"It's Jeff's baby," Matthew said. "He wrote the script his way - based loosely, very loosely, on his own freshman-year college experiences at Brown University in Rhode Island. As the producer, I'm just the guy who wouldn't take no for an answer - even from Jeff. And I raised a lot of the money. It's a movie about family, which is appropriate, because it became a family project."

The movie has been making the rounds of the festival circuit for the past two years, including stops in Boston, Seattle and the Hamptons as well as the Woodstock Film Festival, Traverse City Film Festival and Waterfront Film Festival. It recently played for two weeks at New York's Village East Cinema.

It concerns a naive college freshman who wants to draw but is pushed into engineering school. The boy, Aaron, meets an older woman named Linda, who invites him over for dinner. She's a former wild child who has returned to college to straighten out her life. He is smitten, but she's dating someone. He is unofficially adopted by her family, which includes her 14-year-old daughter, the punky and sarcastic Beth, who quickly develops an aggressive crush on him.

It's two women - one mature and the other jailbait - and a freshman who quickly realizes that the romantic math doesn't work in this dysfunctional triangle.

Matthew Fine is a local sculptor and businessman. Jeffrey, who's two years younger, lives in Los Angeles, where he has worked on television projects. His 1996 fiction-feature debut, "No Easy Way," was well received.

Variety's review of the film marked Jeffrey as a new "director worth watching" and hailed the film for its "solid script, well-timed direction and standout production values that... place this low-budgeter head and shoulders above the norm."

Two years of planning led to four intense weeks of shooting. "The beauty of independent moviemaking," Matthew said, "is that you can go at your own pace. Jeff looked at every daily and had the time to edit it his way."

Offers for the script came from Hollywood studios that would have kept Jeffrey from directing. "The story was too important to Jeff," Matthew said. "He didn't want to turn it over to another filmmaker. They wanted Hilary Duff to play the 14-year-old."

Kalamazoo College and West Michigan University stood in for Brown because the Michigan Film Advisory Commission offered a bonus to shoot there. "We received a check for one-third of our budget four months after we completed shooting," Matthew said.

The production did hit some bumps: The actress assigned to play the older woman became pregnant with triplets weeks before filming. Laura Allen stepped in. Kyle Gallner played the 17-year-old freshman, and Brittany Robertson took the role of the 14-year-old.

"Audiences who see it react enthusiastically," Matthew said. "But there is no money for a major release or for major TV ads."

The brothers are excited, though, about "Cherry" finally getting to play before a hometown audience. It's a comedy where they get the final laugh.

Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com