When I was a kid in a small private school on Long Island and this event occurred, we were all fascinated. For years, I've been wondering what to do with the material. I think it should be an opera. They're all so operatic and passionate in their personalities.
That is the way I write. Everything I write is about very serious things, but handled in a sort of idiosyncratic manner.
Obviously, there are shots that she doesn't account for. What I believe just personally is that she did mean to drive up in an awful storm and kill herself. As for what happened once she was in that bedroom -- I'd hope the film makes a compelling case for what happens in the heat of the moment.
I personally tend to believe her story, that she meant to shoot herself. She did do a test fire; she did have trouble handling a gun. But it all didn't fit with the jury.
She maintains that sort of distance, and I think that's the kind of distance one needs to walk that line with that humor. So the script is informed on every level by it.
The pace is especially important in this, when it isn't so much a whodunit. We had to find a way to structurally keep shifting the focus, where you think you know something but you see that you don't.
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