Inside Michael Patten’s Goodnight, Moon: A Raw Exploration of Grief and Memory
Shot on 16mm, the film captures a deeply personal journey through loss and the distortion of time
When filmmaker Michael Patten first co-wrote Goodnight, Moon with Jacob Kaplan, grief was a distant abstraction. By the time the film was shot, two years later, both Patten and lead actor Kris Avedisian had lost their fathers. What began as a script about trespassing, séances, and a son returning home to scatter ashes became, almost unintentionally, a raw and deeply personal meditation on mourning. Shot on 16mm film with a moody elegance and an undercurrent of dark humor, Goodnight, Moon doesn’t just examine death, it gently plays with it, blurring the lines between memory and goodbye, childhood and afterlife, performance and catharsis.
In our exclusive interview, Patten reflects on the film’s evolution, the weight of personal loss, and the creative choices that shaped Goodnight, Moon.
Goodnight, Moon explores themes of grief and closure with emotional depth. What drew you to this story, and how did your personal journey shape its development?
Jacob Kaplan and I wrote the script before I had any personal experience with losing a parent. We were supposed to shoot the film in 2020, but like a lot of projects, it got delayed because of COVID. By the time we were finally able to make it, my dad had gotten an advanced cancer diagnosis and passed away six months later. Kris Avedisian, who plays the lead, had also lost his father during that same window. I remember this phone call between us where we both kind of said, “We have to make this now while the feeling is still raw.”
The script itself didn’t really change, which is interesting. I’m not sure how much of our grief shows up explicitly on screen, but maybe you can feel it in Kris’s performance. For example, during the seance scene, I switched Delphi’s line (who plays the older woman) from “kiddo” to “tiger,” which is what Kris’ father used to call him. Kris fell to pieces at the utterance of that word. Maybe it was a bit cruel, but the performance did feel raw.
Despite grief being the backdrop, I’ve always seen the film as a comedy. Grief can scare people, so the film’s tone tends to shift depending on the audience. Some crowds laugh the whole way through, and others are much more quiet.
The ending is especially divisive. Steve’s final phone call, where he lashes out and sort of gloats about keeping all the ashes, I’ve noticed, can split the room. Some people really bristle at that moment. To me, it’s funny in a very sad, human way. Grief can make people act out in unhinged ways. Maybe because they’re desperate to hold onto someone who’s already gone.
Behind-the-scenes still of Kris Avedisian and Delphi Harrington on set
“I switched Delphi’s line (who plays the older woman) from “kiddo” to “tiger,” which is what Kris’ father used to call him. Kris fell to pieces at the utterance of that word. Maybe it was a bit cruel, but the performance did feel raw.”
The film’s title echoes the classic children’s book. Was that parallel intentional, and how does it relate to the story’s exploration of memory, childhood, and loss?
Yes, the allusion to the children’s book was intentional. Jacob and I liked how just hearing the phrase Goodnight, Moon evokes this hazy mix of childhood, memory, and nostalgia, even if the story itself has nothing to do with the book.
We added the comma to make it more of a salutation. Saying “goodnight” feels spiritually close to saying goodbye; it usually comes right before sleep, and sleep itself can feel like this small rehearsal for death. There’s darkness, a letting go, drifting into dreams; it’s easy to draw a line from that to the afterlife.
And then there’s “moon,” which is such a murky, open-ended symbol. Traditionally, it’s associated with the feminine, but then you’ve got the “man in the moon,” or the old Georges Méliès image, which is surreal and kind of genderless. I liked that ambiguity. It felt right for the séance scene in the film, where things start to blur between life and death, masculine and feminine, real and unreal.
Kris Avedisian and Delphi Harrington in a scene from Goodnight, Moon
“Sleep itself can feel like this small rehearsal for death. There’s darkness, a letting go, drifting into dreams; it’s easy to draw a line from that to the afterlife.”
Can you discuss the collaborative process with your co-writer, Jacob Kaplan, and how your combined visions shaped the final script?
I was going through some old files recently and found one of the earliest drafts Jacob and I wrote. I’m sort of embarrassed by how long we were kicking around half-finished ideas. We knew we wanted to write something together, and we went through a lot of short film drafts that we eventually scrapped. Ideation is always the hardest and most fragile part of the process, and doing it collaboratively is kind of beguiling. But giving ourselves years to meander through ideas ultimately led us to something we were both excited about.
The project really started with the image of a séance and a kiss. In the earliest version, the female character was a young woman. After a few drafts, we tried making her much older, and suddenly the whole thing opened up. It just felt more layered and surprising.
Jacob’s a fiction writer, so he has this incredible ear for language. There’s a wryness to his writing that really comes through in the film’s humor. We used a program called Writer Duet (basically Google Docs for screenplays), and we’d take turns writing in real time. Sometimes, a “turn” would just be one sentence. That back-and-forth was especially great for writing dialogue. If one of us typed something and the other laughed, we knew we were onto something. It was easily the most fun I’ve ever had writing a script.
A still from Goodnight, Moon featuring lead actor Kris Avedisian.
“Ideation is always the hardest and most fragile part of the process, and doing it collaboratively is kind of beguiling. But giving ourselves years to meander through ideas ultimately led us to something we were both excited about.”
The cinematography is stunning. What was it like collaborating with your director of photography, Sharif El Neklawy, especially when working with 16mm Kodak film? How did your visual language develop together?
This is actually the fourth film I’ve made with Sharif. In many ways, Goodnight, Moon felt like a maturation of the first film we did together, Bad Dog, where we started developing a style with long takes, slow zooms, and a grainy, almost rough-around-the-edges character portrait. Because we already had a shared visual language, most of our pre-production talks were about specific shots and finding the right balance between coverage and longer single takes.
We’d been wanting to shoot on film for years. Before Goodnight, Moon, we’d tried to mimic that look digitally, but finally shooting on 16mm gave the film a distinctive texture and feel. The best part about shooting on film was the exteriors because you can rely purely on natural light. We also were able to shoot our exterior days with a tiny crew, which I always prefer. The interiors required much more lighting and crew because the house was fairly dark.
What I didn’t expect was how much extra pressure shooting on film adds. Even with a planned shooting ratio, I was constantly conscious of conserving every foot of film. When you say “roll camera” and hear the film moving through the gate, the producer side of your brain immediately hears dollar signs, and you’re aware you’re using up film stock you’ll need for later scenes. It adds an extra layer of mental juggling to the process.
“What I didn’t expect was how much extra pressure shooting on film adds. Even with a planned shooting ratio, I was constantly conscious of conserving every foot of film.”
You assembled a remarkable cast, including Kris Avedisian, Delphi Harrington, and Michael Cullen, who each brought a grounded, authentic presence. What was your casting process like, and how do you approach working with actors to achieve that level of emotional truth?
We always knew Kris would play Steve. We basically wrote the film for him. Kris and I met at a film festival back in 2013 and quickly became close friends. He’s not only a phenomenal performer but also a really talented writer and director. In the weeks before shooting, Kris and I did several Zoom rehearsals to dial in his character’s physicality. He even went to a used clothing store and picked out that oversized suit himself. It was a very collaborative process.
For Delphi and Michael, I actually got a great tip from a friend at my gym who gave me a list of names. They both come from theater backgrounds. There’s this huge pool of incredibly talented older NYC stage actors, and luckily, I was able to tap into that. I went down the list doing Zoom calls, and it was honestly the easiest casting process because everyone I spoke to was so skilled.
One of the most fun parts was pairing Kris and Delphi, who have completely different approaches to acting. I like pairing trained and untrained actors together because it creates this spontaneity. No one is safe, and safety usually leads to a dull performance.
For example, I encouraged Kris to play around with the dialogue we wrote for him, we often tweaked lines as a way to get moments to feel right. Meanwhile, with Delphi, I was much stricter about her sticking exactly to the script. There was one moment where Delphi got frustrated because I was correcting her on tiny things, like missing an “a” or “the.” Meanwhile, Kris had free rein to improvise. Definitely a double standard! But I trusted Delphi to make any line feel natural.
A still from Goodnight, Moon featuring lead actor Kris Avedisian.
“I like pairing trained and untrained actors together because it creates this spontaneity. No one is safe, and safety usually leads to a dull performance.”
The film makes powerful use of New York as both setting and character. What were the challenges and rewards of shooting in the city, particularly with your mix of interiors and exteriors?
I think the Verrazano is what makes this movie feel particularly New York. It’s my favorite bridge in the city. It has this really haunting look to it, I think because of how long it is. It’s actually the longest suspension bridge in the US.
Jacob and I also loved the Verrazano as a metaphor for Steve’s journey back home, crossing from one place to another. That bridge marks his passage through many different planes, his childhood, the afterlife, and his grief.
A still from Goodnight, Moon featuring the Verrazzano Bridge
Explore more about Michael Patten and Goodnight, Moon:
Instagram: @waterboxes
Website: www.iammichaelpatten.com
Director: Michael Patten
Writers: Michael Patten, Jacob Kaplan
Producers: Michael Patten, Davis Fowlkes
Cinematographer: Sharif El Neklawy
Editor: Sean Dunn
Production Designer: Blake Larue
Cast: Kris Avedisian (Stephen Gailule), Delphi Harrington (Lady), Michael Cullen, Brendan Abbott, Beth Griffith (voice), Roberto Ragone
IMDb Page: Goodnight, Moon
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