Based on a true story, Adopting Audrey follows the titular character (Jena Malone) as she puts herself up for adoption in order to find a sense of belonging. After some failed attempts, she eventually meets a family and bonds with Otto (Robert Hunger-Bühler), despite how unlikely their relationship seems. Also in the cast of Adopting Audrey are Emily Kuroda, Will Rogers, Brooke Bloom, Lawrence Inglee, and more. It’s written and directed by M. Cahill.

“Audrey sort of lives a bit on the fringe of what’s societally allowed,” explained Malone, “she’s a bit of a nomad and definitely questions work culture. She can easily take a job, get fired from a job, try a different thing, learn a skill on YouTube, earn some extra cash, live in her car, and move away. It’s a very interesting byproduct of that grind culture and the DIY or death, that you form such a deep self-resilience that you don’t need anyone, you may not even really need a place. But then we realize that doesn’t really serve us and that there’s a lot more conversation to be had, and that maybe we need to invite in more community care because that’s maybe truly what we need as humans… so that’s kind of where you find her story.”

Finding Family and Community Care

Finding that community care, as Malone mentioned, is a large point of Adopting Audrey. The main character feels estranged from her family, even asking her biological father at one point why he and her mother married, only to find out it was because “she had an air conditioner.”

“It’s about adult adoption but not necessarily in the legal technicality term. You know, getting a lawyer and doing that. It’s more kind of a heart adoption, or rather the term that we’re maybe more familiar with is chosen family where we realize the relationship with your parents doesn’t end at 18. That even adults need tending and care, and support systems that maybe aren’t offered to us, or have not been given to us in a way that we need it. We find her making those choices, sort of against being an island of self-resilience and inviting more of the community to meet her needs of a support system.”

Malone continued, discussing her character further and what it was that really drew her to the project. “I felt like Audrey was a character I hadn’t really seen before,” although she recalled a few that may be in a similar vein like No Man's Land. “But I think traditionally, I’ve really only seen this type of character in a more masculine way, where it’s sort of like the roamer, rootless, one town and then the next, jack of all trades, comes in and messes with all of the women and then leaves. I just felt like it was a really nice take on that type of nomadic experience in a way I hadn’t seen before.”

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Working With M. Cahill and Robert Hunger-Bühler

AdoptingAudreyBuhlerMalone
Vertical Entertainment

“He’s great at working with actors,” commented Malone on working with Cahill, “he had a vision for what he wanted it to be but pretty much just left me alone to kind of discover and find things, and gave me a nice room to play in.”

Hunger-Bühler is exceptional in the film, in which he almost wasn’t able to take part because of visa issues from Germany which were sorted a day or two before filming. “He’s incredible,” said Malone, “we almost didn’t get him because of a work visa from Germany, so he came in like two days or 24 hours before he was supposed to shoot, so it was sort of a blind luck kind of thing… he built this character from the ground up, and we all go to just witness it, and it’s my favorite performance in the film. It’s so unique and so funny and endearing."

As for what Malone hopes people take away from watching Adopting Audrey, she shared the central sentiment of the film, being the ability to have conversations about community care as “that’s a healing mechanism we can all use right now.”

“A few years ago, I met an adult woman who made the remarkable decision to put herself up for adoption with a new family. The more time we spent together, the more I felt that hers was a story that needed to be shared. We’re all grateful for the way in which the film and its themes have resonated with Vertical. We couldn’t help for better partners,” commented Cahill in a press release.

Adopting Audrey comes to us from Vertical Entertainment and will be released in theaters and on demand on August 26, 2022.