A smash at Sundance, Before You Know It is the first narrative feature from filmmakers Jen Tullock and Hannah Pearl Utt, who also costar in the comedy that does a deep dive into family dysfunction set in the theater world.
Tullock and Utt became best friends and collaborators after meeting at a birthday party years ago. They went on to create the web series Disengaged, about a female couple wrestling with whether or not to wed after the Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage.
The friends worked with producer Mallory Schwartz and the Sundance Institute's directing and screenwriting lab on Before You Know It, which they both wrote and Utt directed. In the film, they play sisters Rachel (who is a lesbian) and Jackie, who discover that their mother (Judith Light), who was long presumed dead, is very much alive and working as a soap actress. Mandy Patinkin, Alec Baldwin, and Mike Colter costar.
The film's synopsis reads as follows:
"Stage manager Rachel Gurner (Utt) still lives in her childhood apartment -- along with her off-kilter actress sister, Jackie (Tullock); eccentric playwright father Mel (Patinkin); and deadpan preteen niece Dodge (Oona Yaffe) -- above the tiny theatre they own and operate. Levelheaded and turtleneck-wearing Rachel is the only thing standing between her family and utter chaos. Then, in the wake of a sudden family tragedy, Rachel and Jackie learn their presumed-deceased mother is actually alive and thriving as a soap-opera star. Now the sisters' already-precarious balance turns upside down, and Rachel must figure out how to liberate herself from this surreal imbroglio."
In the exclusive clip below, Rachel hatches a plan that has her mother, Sherrell, playing the evil twin of her soap opera character.
Before You Know It is in theaters on Aug. 30 and out on digital on Dec. 3.
