Sean Lìonadh On the Essential Tenderness for the Ticking Bomb of ‘Too Rough’

I remember when I was a kid and I sneaked boys into my house when my mom didn’t know. A lot of queer people, I assume, have some experience akin go that, but director Sean Lìonadh’s impressive short film. Too Rough, charts the anxiety of being found out as your authentic self. Tenderness and fear live side by side in a film that many of us can connect to in one way or another.

Lìonadh and I briefly talked about our own experiences before coming out and that strange feeling of not knowing what to do when the ones who are supposed to love you give you something else. We are meant to feel safe at home, but what happens when home is a volatile place you don’t want to come back to?

Too Rough is set during an anxious early morning. At a party the previous night, Charlie asks his boyfriend, Nick, why they never crash at his place. Even though he is reluctant, Nick brings Charlie home to prove him wrong, but the couple oversleeps. They wake up in the morning to Nick’s alcoholic parents screaming over every little thing, and Nick has no idea how he will get his boyfriend out of the house without anyone noticing.

“I wanted to throw this character into an anxious trap or hell even,” Lìonadh said. “I wanted to see the limitation of this one room would affect this relationship. His anxiety is a big part of that. I had to sneak a boyfriend out once, and it was kind of a form of warfare almost. There was strategy involved, so, in the film, the family posed a big threat. A big intention that I did have was that I wanted the house to feel like domestic warfare. That’s what a dysfunctional household could feel like.”

There is a double layer of claustrophobia happening all throughout Too Rough. Even if Nick manages to get Charlie out of his bedroom, they are then tasked with getting him out of their flat. It’s almost as if we can hear Nick’s heart pounding in his ears. Outside of this world, he has the freedom to move at his own pace, but you are always a certain type of person when you are in your parents’ house. If they don’t know who you truly are, you remain a stranger in a place that should be a haven.

“Because I was on set and knew the space so well, I didn’t feel claustrophobic. Audiences have told me otherwise, I will say,” Lìonadh admits. “Aspect ratio is a big part of that. The performances have a constrained element to it. Nick is like an animal that is caught in the pathway of a predator at all times. The Mise-en-scène and the set design, the performances, and the sound really understood that intention as a natural consequence. Pretty much for the entire film, Nick is being watch an scrutinized, and it’s not until the ending does he take control. It plays into being watched, but it’s about someone who is hiding from their lover because they think they are too rough to be loved.”

Throughout the majority of the film, the screaming outside the bedroo ratchets up the tension, and you expect the boys to be found out at any moment. When Nick’s father enters, he is drunk out of his mind, and he professes his love to his son in a strange and terrifying way. He pins Nick down onto the bed as Charlie hides, and we can see Nick trying not to emotionally break to escape further consequences. It’s a moment that Lìonadh knew he needed to recreate.

“That was a very cathartic experience, because it was lifted directly from my life,” he said. “I used to feel the weight of my father on top of me, and I was terrified. I thought to myself, ‘One day, I’m going to tell this story.’ I made a contract with myself that the world was going to find out what was happening to me. I directed that scene where I was alone in the kitchen with the monitor and the cast and crew was in the bedroom. As I was watching it, I got the feeling of occupying a memory from a position of power. It was like I was revisiting this helplessness but with complete power from a safe place. I melted and cracked. It was a kind of therapy. The cast needed very little help to get to that place–everyone knew what the film was about. Everyone took it very seriously.”

There are elements of a psychological thriller at play in Lìonadh’s film, but the ending reveals a surprising tenderness. Once Nick and Charlie stumble out of the bedroom, they find a calm and almost dreamlike scene. Lìonadh uses light and shadow so effectively in the final moments that we are seeing a brilliant young director at play. He has infused his film with so much emotion and personal experience that you can’t help but be affected by it.

“That image was very important to me–it was very deliberate. I wanted some beauty to it. For a lot of people, alcohol is a way for some to access love. The parents are at war for the entire film, and once they can drink, they are back together. In Scotland, alcohol permits people to be vulnerable. I think that’s why there is such a problem, because we are taught to be so hard and tough. Alcohol allows people to open up, and there is a beauty to that even thought some can end up being addicted to it. I wanted that to be beautiful and I wanted the parents to be floating in their intoxication. It’s when the truth comes out. The bomb that was ticking the entire film is the family finding the Nick and Charlie. Hitchcock said that if you put a bomb under the table, you cannot ever set it off. Once you do that, there is no suspense. I had to listen to him for that moment. The way to subvert that is to have the boys expose themselves, but they aren’t going to be able to blow up. They are too out of their minds. In that moment, Nick is the one who is in charge and Charlie finally sees the truth for himself.”