‘Young Werther’ Director & Stars on Turning Tragedy Into a Rom-Com

It’s all about nabbing the rights in Hollywood, isn’t it? If you follow the headlines offered by the trades, you’re constantly learning which hit novel has just been scooped up by a major studio or filmmaker for adaptation to the big screen. These days, it’s usually concerning a more recent bestseller, but there remain myriad centuries-old works that have yet to be translated into the cinematic medium, or reinterpreted for the modern era. It doesn’t even matter if a work has been adapted before. For instance, The Sorrows of Young Werther was made into several forgotten, foreign-language titles, including a German period drama back in 1976, but that’s a far cry from the new film Young Werther, a modernized rom-com spin on the Romantic classic.

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Filmmaker José Avelino Gilles Corbett Lourenço’s film is a clever, heartfelt, upbeat, and downright funny reimagining of the source material. MovieWeb recently caught up with Lourenço to learn how the film version all started for him. “It was one of those things where I’d sort of read the book in college. I had to read it for a class, and I liked it, and it stuck around on my shelf. And then years later, after I’d had some romantic entanglements of my own, I sort of pulled it down and reread it, and it resonated with me in a different way,” he told us, adding:

“It was just one of those moments of like, ‘Oh, why hasn’t this been adapted into, like, a major English-language thing?’ It’s been adapted all across Europe for years, operas, plays, films, comic books; there are so many [non-English] versions of it. I was like, ‘Oh, seems like a thing that I could take a swing at.’ Like, the characters seem relevant today, the themes seem relevant. And it just spoke to me, and I dove right in.”

For those unfamiliar with epistolary novels like The Sorrows of Young Werther, they are books written in a letter format. Lourenço shared with us how he utilized the novel’s unique style for modern-day storytelling on the big screen. “Early on, when I was working on it, I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I’ll have him, you know, on the phone to [Werther’s friend] Paul, or maybe I’ll have him texting or writing emails.’ Then I was like, ‘I don’t want to see a bunch of typing,'” said Lourenço, adding:

“So one of the big changes was bringing Paul in initially as a device to have Werther confessing all of his emotional turmoil to his best friend. But then I was like, ‘Oh, this is a real opportunity to give Paul — to have this character not just be a device, but have him have a real role in the narrative and someone who goes on their own journey and finds a spark of love, and have that be a catalyst for a confrontation with Werther that makes Werther reevaluate.'”

Related: ‘Young Werther’ Review: Irresistible Stars Illuminate a Groundbreaking Novel

Revisiting the ‘Controversial’ Book

And while the film’s leading men may not have read the original book before joining Lourenço’s new film, its groundbreaking nature and impact on European society thereafter were not lost upon Young Werther stars Douglas Booth and Patrick J. Adams. Said Adams:

“I am fascinated by how controversial it was at the time, you know, and that it just sort of took the world by storm. It comes at the end of the Enlightenment, this time of extreme rationality and science and… using the mind to control your world, like, this very specific time. And then here comes this book about passion and the pitfalls and the joys of it, you know — the sorrows, but yes, the joys.”

“[Werther’s] such a vibrant, wonderful contrast to people like Albert, who kind of embody what the rest of that time period has been about,” added Adams about Goethe’s book. “And I love how controversial that was, and I love that it took the world by storm. And I love that José was able to adapt that into something now that feels vital and true and honest.”

Booth also commented on the source material in our separate interview with the rising star. “I hadn’t read it before, but I’d obviously heard of it. I very much enjoyed hearing the story about Napoleon carrying it into battle, and carrying a copy over his heart for Josephine, and it being sort of the Twilight of the day, and everyone sort of imitating Werther’s actions at the end of the book, all these sort of heartbroken teenagers. So yeah, I hadn’t read the source material, but then I very much enjoyed, once I’d read the script, going back and seeing how José had woven this classic story of passion, heartbreak, individuality, and unrequited love, and woven it into this modern tale set in Toronto.”

From Lionsgate, Young Werther is now in theaters, on digital, and on demand. You can rent or buy it on digital platforms like YouTube, Google Play, Prime Video, Fandango at Home, and on Apple TV through the link below:

Watch Young Werther