Director David Gordon Green looks at love in smalltown America.

“Every hour and a half, you’ve got to write another poem. That should be your thing,” director David Gordon Green tells the waitress as she pours us coffee in a Berlin Hotel. Sat beside us is the film’s star and co-writer Paul Schneider, but as this article is about All The Real Girls’ 28-year-old director, I’ll make like Schneider wasn’t there.

Green, though, is impossible to ignore. Three years ago, his debut film George Washington stunned audiences with its lyrical portrayal of a child’s death. Now he returns with a look at love, warts and all, in a small American town.

He is nothing like you’d expect. Firstly, his appearance. “I’m not black, I know I’m not,” he asserts, referring to the common misconception that people had after seeing George Washington, set in a black community in the Deep South. And he likes to joke around, with what could literally be described as toilet humour given the number of crappy jokes that pop up in conversation.

“If you watch the film again it’ll be much better, knowing how retarded we are,” he says. Some retard. He’s already being called America’s hottest director and Drew Barrymore has just persuaded him to direct her in A Confederacy Of Dunces.

As for All the Real Girls, Green makes it clear that the film’s timeless smalltown setting “has nothing to do with this universe. This could be long ago in a galaxy far away.” He hopes this will give the film a universal appeal, as relevant to kids in Asia as America.

Turning convention on its head seems to be his forte. He even has the schmaltzy romantic kiss at the start and not the end of his movie. “Endings are important,” says Green, who claims personal experience has taught him that romance always ends ambiguously. “All too often in Hollywood there’s this nice, pretty package.” Kaleem Aftab 01 Aug 03

All The Real Girls, on selected release 01 August 03.

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