Jason Reitman thinks his movies "should be an opportunity to reflect our lives".
The 41-year-old filmmaker – who previously directed ‘Juno’ and ‘Labor Day’ – has revealed he considers it his responsibility to make his audience consider their own lives and their decisions more closely.
He told Den of Geek: "Movies should be an opportunity to reflect our lives and re-examine how we feel about the way we’re living now.
"My job as a filmmaker is not to take you over the finish line, or tell you what to think. My job is to offer questions and then hand you the baton to run with in any direction you wish.
"My thrill is when one audience member has a completely different experience to the one next to them, and the debate that comes from that on the ride home."
Jason’s latest movie is ‘The Front Runner’, a drama that tells the story of a Democratic Presidential candidate and his subsequent fall from grace.
The film – which stars Hugh Jackman as the Presidential candidate Gary Hart – is Jason’s first effort based on real-life events, and he’s revealed how that shaped his approach to the movie.
He said: "This is my first movie about real events and real people, so in that sense the plot was already written. It became a question of ‘how are we telling this?’"
Jason also explained how Hugh’s performance in ‘The Front Runner’ differs from some of his earlier movies.
He shared: "If you hear Hugh Jackman’s in a movie, the clear presumption is that he’s heroic, whether he’s being Logan or PT Barnum (in ‘The Greatest Showman’).
"He’s an actor whose heart beats out of his chest, he’s a very emotional actor. You’re surprised when you watch this movie because he’s not even the main character – he’s the object that the twenty main characters are trying to understand."
Jason Reitman: Movies should be an opportunity to reflect our lives
