Movie Spotlight: RedShore

A guy in a small Maine town loses everything in one night. His girlfriend is murdered. His friends pull him back in. A girl from his past shows up and offers comfort, and then he starts to wonder why.

RedShore began very close to home for CJ Howey, who wrote, directed, and stars as Miles. The film’s plot is fictional. The wound underneath it isn’t. “It actually hits home, as a very similar situation happened to me with my father,” Howey says. “I basically avoided my father after finding out he only had 6 months to live. It was a strong form of denial. We were very close.”

Rebuilding where everyone already knows your name

The premise gets miscategorized as the “move to a new place to start over” story. It isn’t that. Miles has lived in RedShore his whole life and is rebuilding inside the same town that watched him grow up. “It’s not necessarily the place that helps heal,” Howey says. “Miles lived in RedShore his whole life. Rebuilding in his home town surrounded by people from his past, and new faces, is where it stays interesting.”

The girl who knew the killers

Ellie dies early. She was Miles’s whole world, and she was killed by someone else in the town. When a girl from his past comes back into his orbit, what looks like comfort starts to feel like something else. “When Miles runs into a girl from his past, he feels a sense of comfort, before realizing she has ties to the people who killed his girlfriend,” Howey says. “Miles has a mature piece of mind, but can’t help but think her intentions aren’t pure at first.”

The thing the father can’t say

The quietest pressure point in the film is the father. He has a secret. Miles does not have room for it. “In the story RedShore, the father is trying to tell Miles about his illness (cancer) but Miles feels like he needs to spend his time with his friends because ‘tomorrow isn’t promised.’ This all stems from losing his girlfriend Ellie.” The parallel to Howey’s own life is intentional. He wants viewers to come out the other end of the film thinking about who they have been avoiding. “I want viewers to realise the importance of family, because someday they won’t be here anymore.”

Filming a funeral that was not fiction

The hardest scene was a re-creation of his father’s funeral. The father character in the film is modeled on Howey’s stepfather Jody, who has been a father to him just as much as his biological one. So while shooting the funeral, Howey was holding two losses at once. His body refused to cry on cue.

“I struggled to tear up on set, it seemed like my body wouldn’t let me,” he says. “The emotions didn’t hit me until later that night, when it finally set in. It was a very hard night, but it was a story that needed to be told.”

A friend group that already knows each other

The other anchor of the film is texture. The cast plays a friend group that feels like it has been together since grade school. “I wanted viewers to feel like the friend group truly have been together their whole life. Small town vibes where everyone knows everyone.” The town on screen is a close cousin of Standish and Sebago, Howey’s actual home turf. The DIY side of the production has been less romantic. “The hardest part will forever be funding,” he says, but the upside is local. “I’m likely to have such a supportive community in my home state.”

What to know before you press play

“Enjoy the projects made by a group of friends from Maine,” Howey says. “Thank you for the support.”

Drama

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Streaming now on Relay.