You have to take your hat off for director Tommy Stovall and writer John Spare for navigating Condition of Return in a manner that I don’t think even the savviest of viewers would predict. As a whole it may not always adhere to a certain cohesion as it flits between a dramatic thriller detailing the aftermath of a mass shooting and a faith-based tale that almost veers into the supernatural, but, sometimes, creative unpredictability has to be recognised and appreciated, regardless how one may respond to the film itself.
Headlined by a committed AnnaLynne McCord, Stovall’s curveball-throwing feature focuses on her Eve Sullivan, a rather unremarkable woman who has married a narcissistic abuser (what a combo!) and, seemingly almost against her own devices, has executed a mass shooting in the very church she frequented as a devout Christian.
Eve has no defence to speak of when it comes to the crime itself – she seems unnaturally willing to accept her punishment and doesn’t intend to plead on any type of insanity – which only makes her case all the more intriguing to psychologist Dr. Donald Thomas (Dean Cain), who can’t entirely read through Eve’s cool exterior.
The film is at its best when it’s focusing on McCord and Cain, letting the two manoeuvre the other’s psyche and faith as we try to establish Eve’s mental state and if the higher power she claims guided her is manifesting as something more mental or physical.
Where the film will ultimately test viewers is in its third act where, and if you can avoid spoilers I would, Natasha Henstridge slinks into the film as a puppet master of sorts who takes an awful lot of delight in the film’s eventual camp nature.
At times a sobering drama, and others it’s something far more certifiable, Condition of Return is, at least, never a formularized journey and, at its best, provides the underrated McCord the ability to flex her intoxicating presence on screen in a manner more people deserve to experience.
To celebrate the film’s release on Video On Demand in the United States, Peter Gray spoke with McCord about how she felt in taking on such a morally questionable character, if there was any fear after saying yes to the role, and how she felt about the film’s unpredictable nature.
Reading up on Condition of Return, I know you’ve been vocal about how scared you were to take on this role. I wanted to expand on that and ask you if there ever was a moment after you said yes that you started wondering, “Can I keep going?” Did you ever think that you shouldn’t have said yes?
You know, I’m someone who takes there time when it comes to taking a role. (Condition of Return) wasn’t the case. I was (asking) “Why am I afraid to say yes?” I knew I’d figure it out later, which is my M.O., but when I commit to something, I’m all in! So, because I committed, and even though it was an instantaneous, like knee-jerk response to me being reticent about doing (the film), I still have the mechanism of all or nothing. And I was all in, baby (laughs). I was going to figure it out. And really what it was was confronting, because of my religious background and the trigger points, those moments of the rhetoric of religion versus the actual heart of what has been beautiful for centuries for people.
That’s the nucleus, and then they built this bullshit around us, you know? (Laughs). Quite frankly, I’m all here for Yeshua, the Christ. It’s just all the bullshit that the church did about Him. That’s not the Him I’m into. I love the prophets. I love the teachers. There’s just someone else telling the stories, and, of course, it’s going to get lost in the sauce. We see that in our world, and especially with the Catholic Church, and (my) character, Eve, she’s dealing with blind faith. And I grew up watching that happen. I watched people who have discerning hearts and minds just fully cop out. Just cop out of life, and blame it on divine “whatever”.
I’m a Reiki practitioner. I have traditional and shamanic Reiki mastery, and that has opened me up to an entire world beyond this world. And I’m so grateful for it. It’s helped me make sense of the lies and the untruths that were perpetuated on to my young child mind. (Christ) isn’t a white guy. He didn’t speak English. So in the work that I do, as an energy practitioner, I do this really for my spiritual journey. I call Him the vibration of Christ. And it’s so beautiful and so powerful and so untainted. I’m asking for the origin of this beautiful compassion, and I don’t have to deal with all the fodder. If someone wants to believe in something, as long as you’re not hurting other people, abusing children, or blowing up buildings and countries because of your radicalism, then I have no problem with what you believe. I have no desire to hurt or harm.
And that’s what (my character) Eve is dealing with in this film. She’s not worthy. I was sexually abused as a child, which I have spoken very openly about, and that was another aspect of Eve’s journey that I could relate to, as I was a trailer-park kid with no money, so I could have had a situation much closer to that of Eve. But I got my Cinderella story. I made my dream come true. I got to be the thing that I wanted to be since I was 9-years-old. I get to be an actress and do what I love for a living. I can afford the treatment that I had to (get) and spent out of my own pocket to fix what someone else did to me. I have a career that allows me to step away and disappear. And I know that’s not a common thing. It’s so rare. I’m so blessed.
I think my through-line into the film was the mental health side of things. We’re very lucky here in Australia that mass shootings are not something we can relate to as regularly, but, like so many people, my mental health has had its wavering moments, and like your character you wonder what else you can look to. And in watching Condition of Return, it was certainly a film that I never knew where it was going to go, and I appreciated that I couldn’t predict such.. It starts off with that scene, and then we’re seeing Eve questioned by Dean Cain’s character, and then when Natasha Henstridge was introduced it became another thing entirely!…
(Laughs) Especially if you’re watching movies for a living like you, or you live movies like I do! When I read this script, I could not wait to talk to him! On set I kept asking Tommy Stovall, our director, “When’s (John Spare) on set?” I had to get inside his brain. My character being named Eve, and that having symbolic nature for the Garden of Eden, and I was pointing out all these things, and he was, like, “Oh wow, you picked up on stuff that no one else did.” This is my altar and I just loved it!
Obviously with film you can suspend disbelief, and on this journey we’re living through flashbacks, so we see inside of Eve’s mind, and we really do have to ask the viewers to bear with this, because when Natasha’s character shows up, you are kind of, like, “Whoa!” I even thought that maybe we had jumped the shark (laughs), but we are all the voice of Satan and the voice of God in our own minds. Every day we are constantly dabbling with those forces. It’s not as overt as the way Henstridge played it, it might be more seductive and sexy and yummy, but it’s just this slithery, whispery voice telling you that you could be better, and that you’re not good enough. It’s so easy to believe that, but we have to take into account the fact that in some point in our human lives will experience living in a prison of our own making. And those chains are invisible. You can’t see those prison bars.
And Eve bought into that narrative of that it was okay to buy into God’s free love, because she’s not someone who would respond well to grace or clemency or mercy. There’s a line in the film – and Dean was so amazing to work with, he’s so precious – where my character talks about all the people she killed by saying, “They’re all saved.” She knows where they’re going. They’re going to heaven. And Dean’s character says something about praying and being forgiven, and Eve responds about not making the rules. We both got chills when we were in rehearsal with that, because this character knows she can get away with killing all of her friends, because she’s admitting to that blind faith.
Condition Of Return is available on Video On Demand in the United States. An Australian release is yet to be determined.
