When Lindsey Ryan showed producers an early draft of her script for Capsized, everyone was in agreement: She must be insane.
“And it’s true,” the American director laughs over Zoom in late July. We’re catching up ahead of the world premiere of her debut feature film at one of Britain’s most prestigious film festivals in Edinburgh. The weight of taking a competition title to the Scottish capital is not lost on her, even if she admits the high-risk (and high-reward) project was quite the feat. “I literally did all the things you’re not supposed to do,” she continues. “It’s almost a cliché to say that. But I had an animal. I had children. I had a boat. I’ve disobeyed the Film God laws.”
If anything, the Film Gods were totally rooting for Ryan and Capsized. It follows an idyllic houseboat trip thrown into disarray when Diane (Lily Rabe) and her five children (Sarah Catherine Hook of The White Lotus fame, Griffin Gluck, Eli D Goss, Ada Bland and Joan Stein) are rocked by revelations of financial strife kept secret by the at times charming, mostly chaotic family patriarch, Ray (Rhys Ifans). At sea and with a choppy holiday ahead of them, they face a struggle to stay afloat, emotionally and financially — but not before competing in an epic fishing competition.
