Watching The Legend of Juan Jose Mundo, you’re immediately struck not just by how drolly funny it is, but all the things it’s not making fun of.
The new comedy, set in 1984, gets laughs from the embarrassments and frustrations that come from being a human — especially a teenage human — but not from the typical punchlines of modern-day movies set in the ’80s, like campy callbacks or inside jokes about what we know now but didn’t know then.
The film is playing Friday at Dances With Films New York, and it’s a perfect fit for Dances With Films, a festival that specializes in well-made films that can be hard to pin down: The festival famously doesn’t care about celebrity or industry connections.
And yetThe Legend of Juan Jose Mundo director and co-writer Michael Walker has them anyway. His credits include directing the 2000 Jeff Daniels mystery Chasing Sleep and the 2012 Parker Posey comedy Price Check, as well as the 2022 Dances With Films winner Paint.
And while his three leads aren’t big stars yet, all feel poised to be. Anna Mirodin has what should be a breakout role as Julie Gornick, an inexperienced high school student surprised to learn that her family will be hosting a male exchange student from Spain. Alexandro Byrd is fantastic as that student, Juan Jose, who can’t help but attract seemingly every girl in school. And Cobra Kai actress Hannah Kepple is very funny as Julie’s bolder best friend, Suzanne.
The Legend of Juan Jose Mundo benefits from the fact that Walker was exactly the same age as his characters in 1984. His co-writer, actress Susan Gomes — the two are married — drew on her own experiences to make the film. We sent them a few questions ahead of Dances With Films New York, and Walker answered them with Gomes at his side, with both contributing to his answers.
The Legend of Juan Jose Mundo Director Michael Walker on 80s Movies and His Breakout Gen Z Cast
MovieMaker: It’s very cool to see a teen movie set in 1984 that feels like it could have been made in 1984. But it has the perspective of a grown up with years of distance. I see that you were almost exactly the same age as your teenage characters in 1984 — how much did you tap into your memories?
Michael Walker: The film is based on Susan’s high school experiences growing up in White Plains, New York, and, even though I had a different high school experience, I grew up in the 80s. We spoke with a lot of her friends from growing up and a lot of the stories are in the movie. The main story about a inexperienced girl who hosted a Spanish exchange student was based on a true story of Susan’s best friend back then.
But it’s also filled with a lot of little stories, like the Spanish teacher trying to improve the kids’ accents with a Cheech and Chong-like accent, that actually happened that were really funny and we wanted to put them in the film.
It was a lot of memories like that, but, like you said, it’s also done with the perspective of being older, so it was fun to remember what it was like to be young at that time. Trying to remember how important a lot of dumb teenage shit can be to you when you’re that age — that feeling of being in love and obsessed, like, “I’m going to die if I don’t get with that person!” without even knowing what that means. The drama of everything, how everybody knows everybody’s business. We also tried to keep the adults out of it.
MovieMaker: This reminded me of Savage Steve Holland crossed with Whit Stillman – I love them both but couldn’t imagine much overlap until this. And of course John Hughes is the king of ’80s movies. What were your reference points, besides memory?
Michael Walker: Obviously we grew up on those movies. The biggest influence of the John Hughes movies was that he took his characters and their problems seriously. Fast Times at Ridgemont High was a huge movie for us — it has a real female perspective and emotion and is funny as shit.
We watched and rewatched a lot of ’80s movies while writing and preparing for this, especially all the teen ones. A lot of them are better than you think they’re going to be, like actually well-made movies. And a lot are really bad. And then, just ’80s movies in general, because our generation grew up seeing movies and we all had the same cultural references.
MovieMaker: I don’t know if this is intentional, but you kind of flip an amusing subplot from Better Off Dead – a smart, cool, attractive French girl named Monique is trapped as an exchange student with the awful host Ricky. In your film, the exchange student is the very charismatic Juan, and host Julie feels unwanted. Were you thinking about Better Off Dead? Were there other movies you wanted to play with or subvert?
Michael Walker: We watched Better Off Dead after we wrote it but before we shot it. I had forgotten what it was about, but it was still really funny. I didn’t want to make a broad comedy like that. I thought our plot was maybe closer to 16 Candles. I just wanted to make it real. I just thought about a lot of ’80s movies – I thought about An Officer and a Gentleman a lot. Go figure.
MovieMaker: How did you recreate 1984 so accurately at what I assume was a tight budget? (It looks great, but most indies have tight budgets.) I was especially impressed with your version of 1984 Manhattan.
Michael Walker: I think what makes it seem more accurate is that we tried to put a lot what it was like to live in the ’80s into the script. Waiting for pictures at the Fotomat, letter writing, pay phones, phone cords. One of our pet peeves about other period movies (and TV) is that they spend all this money on these elaborate sets and create these incredible productions, and then everyone talks like they were born yesterday.
We talked different back then. We used words we don’t use anymore. We didn’t swear as much. We weren’t snarky and ironic. We spent a lot of time trying to get the dialogue to sound like it did then.
Kristy Tully, our DP, tried to shoot it like an ’80s film. She lit the film with lights from the ’80s — and blew a few fuses in the process. We threw in ’80s-style shots when we could — wetting down streets at night, or throwing some color in smoke. Our production designer, Annie Simeone, recreated porn theater Times Square 1984 outside a beautiful theater in Downtown Syracuse.
Our movie takes place in the early ’80’s, which is before the ’80s really became what the ’80s were remembered for, so we were careful not to just step into the cliches of “The ’80s.”
MovieMaker: One thing I loved is that the film doesn’t tone anything down — teen drinking, teens having sex lives, people saying very uncool things. It isn’t egregious or played for shock value, it’s just accurate. Were you ever tempted to sugarcoat things?
Michael Walker: We were trying to stay as accurate as we could. I don’t think you can make a movie about the ’80s without some of those things, and I didn’t want to make a big deal about them either. But we definitely thought a lot about whether or not to have the characters say and do certain things. Both Susan and I have Gen Z daughters and know that for this generation, anti-gay slurs/language is not tolerated, but in the ’80s, those words were used constantly in polite conversation.
Girls today have a different view of relationships than girls did then. We decided to keep it all in because it was real. Nobody seems to be offended because they get it was a different time.
MovieMaker: How hard was it to finance this? The soundtrack alone seems quite costly.
Michael Walker: It took a lot of time to find songs that we could afford that we wanted. These are pretty mainstream kids and they listened to mainstream music, which is expensive! Then again, I was surprised by some of the amazing music we did get: Rockit! Adam Ant! ABC! I had to write a few personal letters basically begging, “Dear Howard Jones…” Our music supervisor, Peter Davis, was very patient with us and found us some great stuff.
MovieMaker: What are your distribution hopes/plans? This is such a cool and unusual film in that it’s extremely well-made but also tells a very small story – it’s not trying to save the world. It’s more like a very poignant and honest time capsule.
Michael Walker: I think you’re exactly right! I wanted this to be a jewel box of a movie. Distribution has always been the toughest part of making movies, and it’s never been tougher, especially for a film like this. I know people connect with this film when they see it, but getting their attention to see it is hard. Even in the festival world things are celebrity-driven, or issue-driven, so to be appreciated by a festival like DWF means a lot.
MovieMaker: How did you find your awesome cast?
Michael Walker: We had the amazing Barden/Schnee casting our film. Paul Schnee really loved the script. We wanted to find new actors. Our cast will be stars in the future, but they won’t get there without films like this. We were lucky in that our finance wasn’t attached to us finding stars. Everything is so celebrity-driven, it’s really another thing that makes this film special.
Anna Mirodin, who plays Julie, is in an amazing play, The Disappear, in New York right now. Alexandro Byrd is a lead in the new Disney Descendants movie coming out in July. So they are already on their way.
Also, we were really lucky shooting in Syracuse and having access to some of the theater students at Syracuse University. They really came through.
The Legend of Juan Jose Mundo plays Friday night at 7 p.m. at Dances With Films New York.
Main image: Anna Mirodin and Alexandro Byrd in The Legend of Juan Jose Mundo. Pango Films.
