Filmmaker Amanda Kramer combined a number of different art forms in her new film “By Design,” but her highest order was turning Juliette Lewis into a chair.
“I think of it as a body-swapping movie,” Kramer told editor Adam Chitwood at TheWrap’s Sundance Studio presented by World of Hyatt, explaining her take on the film, which follows a woman played by Lewis who transforms into a chair. “I think of it as the kind of body horror movie that’s about the horror and wear and tear of desperation rather than the blood and gore of violence. I mean, I think desperation is pretty scary.”
Shaped like an epic fable with diminutive characters, “By Design” tells the story of Camille (Juliette Lewis), a woman sustained by friendships with women who use her to talk about themselves. When Camille falls in love with a chair she can’t afford, she becomes the chair hired by a beautiful piano player, Olivier (Mamoudou Athie), from his ex.
The film incorporates movement through choreographer Sigrid Lauren to help tell its story.
“I was really excited by the choreography and the choreographer that she chose, Sigrid, is spectacular and weird,” Lewis said. “But it’s also subtle, because it’s so specific to telling this story, the love story of the chair, so I just wanted to honor that and do a good job.”
The cast garnered much praise for Kramer, but the filmmaker insisted that the experience of bringing “By Design” to life was a collaborative one.
“I also think Amanda is just an incredible leader and director,” said Robin Tunney, who plays Irene in the film. “I feel like that’s why everyone trusted her. There was never a moment about it — it was like surrender. What do you want my hair to look like? What do we do? And I felt so loved that I would have done anything.”
In his review of the film, TheWrap’s Chase Hucthinson wrote“This is the first film Kramer has shown at the festival and it also feels like the one she has spent her entire career building up to. Instead of compromising her ideas, which she has explored with lively, if somewhat diffuse, fervor in previous works, she deepens the emotions she exploits just as she dives further and further into absurdity. Merging a somewhat similar visual style to ‘Please Baby Please’ with the spiky introspective elements of the smaller-scale ‘Pity Me’, it’s not only her funniest film to date, but her best.”
Watch the full interview in the player above. For more of TheWrap’s Sundance 2025 coverage, click here.
