Broadway producer Jeffrey Seller, from ‘RENT’ to ‘Hamilton’

So the intensity of opposition, that's waiting for a lot of these Republican candidates in a general election, is very, very high. The politics of a wartime economy this week on the NPR Politics podcast, listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. This is fresh air. I'm David Bean Kooley. The 2026 Tony Award nominees were announced this week with numerous nominations for the musical's lost boys,

Schmiggadone and the revival of Ragtime.

“Our guest today was a key behind the scenes figure in two Broadway mega hits,”

Rent and Hamilton. Each one of Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Multiple Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Our guest, Jeffrey Seller, produced Rent with his business partner. Seller's own company produced Hamilton.

He also was a producer of Lin Menwell Miranda's first musical in the Heights,

as well as the satirical adult puppet musical, Avenue Koo, and the revival of Sontheim's Sweetie Todd starring Josh Grobin. You might assume since his skills include raising money to produce shows that he's from money, but he's most definitely not. His family was often broke or close to it. He grew up in a neighborhood outside Detroit that was nicknamed Cardboard Village,

because the houses were so cheap and shoddy.

“Seller is the author of the memoir Theodore Kid.”

After many stops along the way, he became a booker with a job of booking touring companies of popular musicals into theaters around the country.

That work led him where he always wanted to be producing musicals.

He also writes about coming out during the AIDS epidemic, and how it wiped out so many people who created and performed in Broadway shows, as well as a significant part of the audience. Jeffrey Seller spoke with Terry last June when his memoir was published. It's now in paperback. Jeffrey Seller, welcome to Fresh Air.

Since this is the 10th anniversary of Hamilton, congratulations of Hamilton Open and Learn Broadway. Let's start there. Thank you. You had already produced rent and Lynn Manuel Miranda's first musical in the Heights. When you heard in the Heights, mix of rap and Broadway music, you felt a little out of

your element, because you hadn't followed rap.

“Had you listened to a lot more rap by the time of Hamilton?”

No, I had of course become completely enamored with in the Heights.

And you know, that first time Lynn sang lights up on Washington Heights at the break of day.

It was so warm. It was like this Caribbean water that's just enveloping me. And then when after that, the Broadway chorus came in with in the Heights, I wake up and start my day. My God, I already had the goosebumps. And in many ways, Hamilton was just Lynn's next musical.

Okay. So since you mentioned in the Heights and that opening song, let's hear it. Okay. Get off it. One baby first and take the escalator.

I hope you're right in this down. I'm gonna test your later. I'm getting tested times the tough on this Voguege. Two months ago somebody bought what takers. One ain't the start it back and nothing, nothing, nothing ever since the winter went up as good.

And that expensive but we knew it just enough. To nothing, nothing ever since the winter went up as good. Okay. First of the Broadway musical in the Heights, Lynn went well Miranda's first musical produced by my guest Jeffrey Celer. So how am I supposed to be a record?

That was the plan. It was going to be called the Hamilton Mix tape. And you convinced her help convince Lynn that it should be a musical, not just a recording. How did you convince him? Well, I'm going to give real credit to that to his colleague, friend and director Thomas Kale.

And Tommy had an idea, which is that if he could get Lynn to do a public cabaret performance of just the songs that would persuade him that this could be a musical. So in early 2012 they did like eight songs from Hamilton at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

"If you want to get going on a musical, I want to be your producer."

And I'll clear the decks. I'll be your cheerleader. I'll be your nurture. I'll be your critic if you want to go. I had a new company at that point.

I named it Adventureland.

“And I said, "Let's go on this adventure together."”

And that was early 2012. So as the lead producer, what was your role? What was your job? Sometimes it was to make lunch, like at one point, Lynn and Tommy and another writer we were considering working with came out to my house. And they would work in the morning.

I would make egg salad with my own mayonnaise that I had learned how to make from the New York Times cookbook and serve. But what I mean by that is setting the table for them to do the great work. And giving them that space and giving them that praise when it was necessary. Giving them that reinforcement and encouragement when it's necessary. And then sometimes knowing when can I make a suggestion or not can I.

Sometimes knowing when is the right time to make a suggestion. Tell us a suggestion you made that you think was really helpful. You know, in the case of Hamilton, I would say I made less suggestions than I ever had before.

But you know, one very important one was cutting the third rap battle and act two.

You know, we had not two rap battles, but we had three rap battles. You know, another situation was cutting the dear Theodosa. I also seemed to remember talking deeply about how the set would be realized, which came later with David Corenz and Thomas Kale. I also remember talking a lot about the staging of Washington on your side, which may not have been in its best form the first time they did it.

“Cutting. Why was cutting the rap battle and the other song that you referred to? Why was cutting them important?”

And why did you think they needed to be caught? How much can we as audience members take in?

We are not equipped for three hour musicals. And our musical already had a first act that was in our 15 minutes, and believe it or not, the second act was even longer.

Which actually breaks the rule that Oscar Hammerstein once said, which was that the first act is usually going to be twice as long as the second act, or let me put it another way. The second act is going to be half as long as the first act, and in our show, the second act was actually longer, and one of our jobs is to really try to feel how the audience is going to stay with the show through every moment of the show. And there's a moment where the audience, they can't take any more. Where are we redundant? Where are we in a situation where we can actually lose something? And in those instances I gave, and there were others in Act 2 as well, that we succeeded.

What's the logic behind the second act being shorter than the first? Because we give our greatest amount of energy to the show for the first act, that's where you're establishing character plot, the rising dramatic action, that big dramatic question, what is the major dramatic question, and then in Act 2 we just really want to see it resolved. And if you look at West Side Story, that's a show that has a 90 minute first act and a 45 minute second act.

“Is there a particular song in Hamilton that when you first heard the music from it made you think this is great?”

Well, then shared with me the first song's probably around 2010, 2011, and when I heard my shot for the first time, I was like, "Whoa!" Like if, if in the heights was this warm Caribbean embrace, my shot was lightning. It was a wall-up, and I knew he was taking this form to a deeper place that had even more impact. And I knew he was on another creative tear. Well, let's hear a little bit of my shot, and of course this is Lynn Manuel Miranda. I am not thrown away, my shot, I am not thrown away, my shot, and you're just like my country, I'm young, scrappy, and hungry, and I'm not thrown away, my shot.

The problem is that not a lot of brains, but no polish, I got a heart just to be heard with every word I drop knowledge, I'm a diamond in the rough.

The shining piece of coal, trying to reach my goal, my power speech, unimpeachable, only 19 of a month or so. These New York City streets get cold, I show that every word in every discipline, a diamond, a manager, I don't have a gun to brandish, I walk these streets famous. The plan is to find this book into a frame, but damn it's good. Lock to the left, fill out the name, I am the agent. Yes, hey, hey, D, E, y'all, we are meant to be.

I call and need it runs independently, meanwhile break it keep in on a sendlessly. Essentially, the taxes relentlessly, then King George turns around and says send this break. He ain't never gonna set it to send it's free, so they will be a revolution in this century. And to me. He says it's a parentheses.

Don't be shocked when your history book mentions me. I will lay down my life if it sets us free. Eventually you'll see my ascendancy, and I am not pulled away, not shut. I am not thrown away, not shut. But you're just like my country, I'm young, scrappy, and hungry, and I'm not pulled away, not shut.

That's Lynn Menwell Miranda from the original Broadway cast recording of Hamilton and my guest was lead producer of Hamilton Jeffrey Seller. He has a new memoir called Theodore Kid.

“Was it hard to convince backers to invest in Hamilton?”

Oh, gosh, no. Hamilton had this incredible power to galvanize audiences almost within minutes. Of any performance starting. So when we started to share readings of Hamilton with people in the industry, they were going crazy for it. So I raised the money for Hamilton faster and easier than I had raised money for anything else before.

Let's talk about Jonathan Larson and Rent. You went to a workshop of Larson's show that was in the works at the time. Tick tick boom, which at the time was called Boho Days. It was in the workshop process. It was an autobiographical one person show, and that person was Larson.

Describe what you initially saw, and why you really identified with it. Oh, my gosh.

So up on that stage was just this piano, bass drums, guitar, and out came this guy named Jonathan who I've never known in my life before.

He was tall and lanky and had curly brown hair. And he just attacked this piano for rociously. And he was singing these songs about turning 30. How he had this image or the sound that we kept going off in his head, tick tick boom. He thought he was going to explode because he was a writer of rock musicals that nobody wanted to produce.

Because he lived in the fourth floor walk up of an apartment down on Greenwich with a bathtub in the kitchen where all the roommates had to switch off on who could use it at what time. He was an amazing performer, and he was singing these songs through the most amazing rock music that was giving me goosebumps all over my arms. And, you know, here was the question.

“Should he keep writing rock musicals that nobody wants to produce?”

Or should he take a job as an advertising copywriter where he'll finally have some money and get health insurance and a better apartment and maybe be able to go on a vacation? And what do I do? Do I sell out? Or do I keep pursuing my passion?

And I thought, how is this guy telling my life story when I've never even met him before?

Because I felt exactly the same way as a 25-year-old booker who really wanted to be a producer. And his goal also was to write a show that spoke to his life and the people he knew and his generation. Did you identify with that goal? Oh my god, you know, Jonathan said about the shows that were happening in the late '80s into the early '90s. Those aren't our characters, that's not our music, those aren't our stories.

And, you know, the first shows that meant something to me were like a chorus line, where I looked up on that stage, I'm a 14-year-old kid, and they're telling stories of their lives. It was a genuinely contemporary musical with a sort of contemporary score.

“And that I knew right then and there, that's what I love.”

So when he said the shows on Broadway aren't telling our stories, what was on Broadway at the time? You had the four mega musicals from England. You had cats, lay miz, phantom, and sagong.

I'll give you an example, Terry. In 1995, the year before rent, there were only two musicals nominated for Best Musical,

“one was Sunset Boulevard, Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, and one was a show called Smokey Joe's Cafe,”

that was a review of Songs by Leaver and Stoller. So Sunset Boulevard actually won Best Score and Best Book by default. Two musicals. And that's where the industry was in the '80s into the '90s. Why do you think that was true? Um, I think one big reason was AIDS. Look at the number of artists we lost Howard Ashman, Michael Bennett,

and look at the artists we lost that we don't even know. And I think it was also about economics. And for some reason, Broadway was having a hard time attracting investment dollars in the '80s into the '90s. So you offered to produce Boho Days, decided to rename it 'Tiktik Boom, and you convinced Larson to do that. And in Serendipity, you were getting fired from your booking job, and the person you were working for said,

“your heart really isn't into this. You should just like, we even go produce, we're firing you.”

And as to it was firing you, Larson is returning a call. And you couldn't take the call. So that seemed like real serendipity.

Oh my gosh. And then you offered to produce that first, but really second show that he had written.

And then you decided it wasn't really working. You had several problems with it. What were some of those problems? I couldn't raise the money. You know, in many ways, when we were working on that show, he told me that he had shared it with Sondheim once. And Sondheim said, "Well, what did Sondheim say?" He said, "That show is just you whining about Supurbia." And in some way. Supurbia was the show he had written before the music.

That's correct.

“And those listeners who remember the movie "Tiktik Boom" that Lin Manuel directed with Andrew Garfield knows that they had done this big workshop of Supurbia.”

And nothing happened from it. And when Jonathan calls his agent after Supurbia doesn't get picked up by any theater, she says, "Pick up your pencil and go back to work." So he writes "Tiktik Boom" and/or "Boho Days" in so many ways. It's his rant about not getting Supurbia produced, at least according to Sondheim. And for me it was a show about how do I stay true to my dreams without selling out.

And guess what? Every theme, every motif that's in "Tiktik Boom" ultimately finds its way to the better show.

And that's rent. So how do you convince him to stop writing "Tiktik Boom" and instead write what was his next idea, which is a musical, a contemporary musical based on Puccino's opera "Labon." Yeah, early on in our professional friendship he shared with me this idea that someone had given him to make a version of "Labon" that would take place in the East Village in which Mimi would have AIDS instead of tuberculosis. And I thought it was a genius idea from the moment he told me. So he was kind of working on two things at once, but the thing about "Tiktik Boom" was that if you took away all the other instruments and he was just at the piano and he was in a rehearsal room and doing it for a bunch of people that could be investors,

it seemed as he was getting older, it seemed to lose its luster. Like I wonder if he had moved on himself emotionally,

because it's some point as we were trying to get "Tiktik Boom" done, it just sounded like a 30-year-old who's afraid he's never going to be successful.

And I'm not sure audiences really are going to be that sympathetic to a 30-year-old who's already in despair that he's not going to be successful. Because most of us would say, "Well, get on with it." Broadway producer Jeffrey Seller speaking with Terry Gross last year. His memoir "Theator Kid" is now out in paperback. We'll hear more after a break, and Justin Chang will review the new film "Silent Friend." I'm David Bean Coolie, and this is Fresh Air.

How do you measure measure all year? In daylight, in sunset, in midnight, in clouds of coffee, in inches, in miles in laughter and strife, 525,610 minutes, how do you measure all year in the life? How about...

“Love, how about love, how about love, how about love?”

Measure in love, season's on love. This message comes from wise, the app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive, and up to 40 currencies, with only a few simple taps. Be smart, get wise, download the wise app today, or visit wise.com, tease and seize apply. How do you deliver criticism to someone like Jonathan Larson without destroying him?

Oh, Lord, Jonathan invited me to the first ever staged reading of rent in the spring of '93.

Stage reading means actors are reading and singing in front of music stands with the scripts in front of them, and there may be a band or a piano in a drum. And I go down, it was at near theatre workshop, it was a hot day in June, and I actually had met this guy who wanted to be a producer, and I knew came from a very wealthy family in Australia. So I thought, maybe if I bring this guy and he loves it, I can get him to invest. That guy leaves it in our mission. And the reading starts with the song rent, and it's like a wall up, it's great, but then immediately the show kind of disintegrates into all these different songs about life in the East Village, and it really has no spine.

It doesn't have a plot that's coming through yet, and that reading kind of drones on for almost three hours. It's like 90 degrees in there, and then this other guy who's there that I was with says, "Well, John, this is very talented, but he should just try something else. He should just work on something else." And then Jonathan calls me and says, "Okay, let's go to dinner. I want to hear what you think." So the first thing about criticism is don't offer until you're asked, right? You've got to wait until they say, "What did you think?"

And sitting at Diane's hamburgers on the opposite side when he said, "What do you think?" And I really had to pause, because I didn't want to hurt his feelings, and I was afraid that he might reject me.

But you always start with praise, and I talked about how great that opening song rent was.

And I talked about how great the environment was. And he said, "Yeah, but what else?" And that's when I said, "I don't understand the story. I don't get the characters. Are you trying to write a play or are you trying to write a collage of life in the East Village?" And he looked at me and he was like, "No, I'm trying to write a play."

“And I said, "Well, then you have to bring forth the story."”

Because right now, I'm not getting it. So during the final dress rehearsal of rent, Jonathan Larson won home early complaining of an upset stomach, a stomach ache,

and by the next morning he was dead, and the day that he died, that was the day of the first preview that was scheduled of rent.

What we know now is he died of a tear in his Aorta, probably caused by Marfan syndrome, which is a genetic disease that weathens the body's connective tissue. First of all, he didn't have health insurance. If he had health insurance, you think it might have been diagnosed, and he might still be alive. He had visited two hospitals in the week before he ultimately died, and neither of them had diagnosed it properly.

“Had he had health insurance, and a doctor who was his personal advocate, would the outcome have been different?”

I don't know, but I know what it means to not have health insurance, and I know how scary that is. Because you went through a lot of your life without it. So, describe for us how you heard the news about Jonathan Larson's death, and what that day was like for you,

I woke up that morning, you four, after the dress rehearsal, and I had given huge praise to Jonathan after the show,

“saying you did it, you made the show it's great.”

He was happy to hear that praise, and he described that he wasn't feeling well to me. But that morning after I woke up, I was like, you know, I was picking out what sweater do I want to wear tonight, what clothes, and after I went to my own therapy appointment, I took the art train to the office, and when I got there, everybody's head was down, and my own general manager said, "Jeffrey, I have something terrible to tell you, Jonathan Larson died last night." And I was in shock, and then I was immediately struck by the fact that, "Holym, he wrote his own life,

and he wrote his own death. This is a man who wrote the song for Roger, one song glory, one song before I go."

And I thought, "Did he know he was going to die?"

I thought, "Did he know he was going to die?" Maybe I wasn't shocked, maybe it all made its own dramatic sense, but I was sad, and I was crushed. And I also somehow knew in that moment he would become a legend. Well, that's a very famous story, you know, in Broadway history.

“What about deciding to go through with the dress rehearsal and what form?”

Yeah, you know, I was on the phone with Jim Nikola, the artistic director of New York Theatre workshop, and what he said is, he was afraid that the kids in the show would not be safe to try to do all the complicated maneuvers, choreography, staging, backstage and on stage, given this trauma that we had all just experienced. So, they were going to do a reading of the show for family and friends of Jonathan. And in fact, that night, we all came into the theater, sat down, and they started doing the show,

sitting at those famous silver metal tables that were the set of rent,

and it was so powerful hearing at a Pascal sing, one song, "Gloria," it was so powerful hearing.

Wilson Heredia sing, "I'll cover you with Jesse Martin."

“And then by the end of the first act, when they were in the life cafe doing La Vie Boème,”

there was just this moment that Daphne Rubin Vega, who was playing Mimi, just got up on that table, and she started dancing, and then Wilson Heredia, as Angel got up, and then Nadina got up, and then the entire cast, did all the choreography on that table to La Vie Boème, and the first act ended with a sense of euphoria. I'm going to let you choose, "What would your rather hear right now?"

Rent, or one song, "Gloria." Oh, "Gloria." Okay, here we go. One song, "Gloria." One song before I go, "Gloria."

One song, one last refrain, "Gloria." From the pretty boy front man, who wasted opportunity. One song, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria."

And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria."

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“And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria."”

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“And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria."”

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And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria."

And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria."

And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria."

And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria."

And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And he had the world and his feet, "Gloria." And it disenabled him from working. Our family wound up on welfare.

And we lost our nice house in our nice neighborhood. And we had to move to this neighborhood that the kids called cardboard village. Because the houses were made of those shingles, those tar shingles instead of bricks.

And instead of having basements, they were built on these 800 square foot slabs of concrete. You know, one teeny bathroom, maybe a cardboard, but certainly no garage.

And that was the neighborhood where I grew up ultimately.

And that basement meant there's no place to shelter if there was a tornado. Yes, so they would like tease you and say, "You know, this is Michigan." So they tease you and say, "How you have nowhere to go." "Where do you go if there's a tornado?" And I would go, "I don't know."

So then your father, because of his traumatic brain injury, he became a summons server, you know, serving paper. That's right, summons subpoenas, all the different court orders to people in trouble.

Yeah, so he dealt with that. Be dads, prospective divorces, don't link with mortgage holders. And when you were available, he'd take you with him. But it sounded like a terrifying experience

because he was a reckless driver. And his way of serving papers was often very confrontational. There were incidents that really left you terrified when you described one of them. Well, I have this very strong memory of him. He'd like, "Come on, go sur papers with me."

And I didn't want to. I didn't like it. I didn't like going to these neighborhoods that were far from our house and leaving, you know, the house. But he wanted my company so badly, so I would say yes.

“And I remember once going to this one neighborhood”

where, you know, the house doesn't look that different from ours. It actually might have been a little bigger. And he can't, like, he's banging on the door. And no one's coming.

And then finally, this woman comes out.

And she is like, you know, like, she's wearing like a t-shirt dress. And she's like kind of shaking her head. No, no, no, meaning like, whoever he's looking for isn't here. And then, from the other side of the house,

this guy comes around and he starts trying to run away and my six foot three, 250 pound father starts chasing after him.

in front of the next door neighbor's house.

“And then the neighbor who's actually living in the house next door”

opens the door and says leave him alone. And then my father serves him the paper. And then that guy screams to my father. "Come, get out of here, you pig." And he used the F for her.

And then my father ran up and put his hand through his window. So, you know, during all of this, you fall in love with theater. And with theater for you, the kind of place you wanted it to be for others. Like, you leave life outside the theater door. And you immerse yourself in the characters

or in directing or producing the show. And that becomes your world while you're in the theater. And it became the greatest new world I could have ever discovered.

This world where we make plays and invent dialogue

and create characters and build sets. And I took it very seriously. And I was incredibly rewarded by the audience reactions. Yeah, because you started off acting. And then I love the story.

You were in a play called Popcorn Pete. It was a school play, right? It was the community. It was the youth theater play. Right.

It was the youth theater play from a local theater company. That was an adult company, but they had a kids part. Correct. And it didn't do well. You know, the theater was half-filled.

And you decided it's because, like, it's not a good play. It's not a good title. Why would anybody come? And so you asked to be on the committee that chooses the plays that the kids perform.

And in a way, like, that's your first time you were a producer. And you were held? 13 years old. Yeah. And you had to convince the adults that you were worthy of being on the committee.

“So was that a very empowering feeling, like, helping to choose the plays?”

Well, that was the first step I took toward becoming a producer.

Because, you know, at the most important decision I ever make is

as a producer, what play to produce. And is that a reflection of my aesthetic, my values, my likes, the characters I care about? So that was a huge moment for me. And I want to also say at the time, I didn't even know it.

I just knew we could do better. And I started reading a plays every weekend. I would read all these different plays. And that's where I started to learn what makes a good play in a bad play.

One last question. Do you see Broadway is headed in a particular direction? Do you see any interesting risks being taken now? The one thing that I look back on with Jonathan and his goals to write stories about our characters, our stories, our music,

is that that value started with rent and it continued on from Avenue Q and in the heights to Hamilton. But it also continued on through so many other shows that I didn't produce like the Pulitzer Prize winning next to normal or Dear Evan Hansen. And even in its own fun way, maybe happy ending,

which is now about two robots who fall in love. So, what I look at Broadway and I see all these contemporary musicals, I say bless you, Jonathan, because every single one of these musicals is standing on his shoulders and some way shape or form.

“And I think if we keep making musicals about who we are today,”

and by the way, Hamilton does that too, even though it's telling a story that's 250 years old. So if we keep making those musicals, I think we're going to be in great shape. Jeffrey, it's been great to talk with you.

Thank you so much. It's just been a pleasure. Thank you so much. It's been my great, great delight and pleasure. Broadway producer Jeffrey Seller, speaking to Terry Gross last year. His memoir, Theodore Kid, is now out in paperback.

Coming up, Justin Chang reviews the new film, "Silent Friend." This is fresh air. Our film critic, Justin Chang, recommends the new Art House drama, "Silent Friend," from the Hungarian writer director, "Elde Cohen Yeti."

He says it's a begiling, century-spanning film about humanity's relationship with the plant world. It features a cast that includes such international stars as Tony Loone and Leia Sadoo. It opens in select theaters this week. Here is Justin's review.

Some movies will forever change the way you look at plants. Unsurprisingly, many of them are thrillers and science fiction films. Like little shop of horrors, the day of the trifids, or more recently, the mind-controlling flower freak out, little Joe.

which dares to suggest that the tree outside your door, or the geranium on your window sill, might be studying you intently. And might even reach out if it could, and tell you what it's thinking.

“But the Hungarian filmmaker "Elde Cohen Yeti"”

isn't interested in scaring us. She wants us to leave this movie, feeling more connected to the natural world. Silent Friend tells three separate stories, all set in different periods across more than a century,

but rooted in the same location, the University of Marburg in Germany.

First we meet a neuroscientist named Tony,

played by the Hong Kong star Tony Loone Chewai, who's visiting the school as a guest researcher. It's 2020, and when COVID hits, Tony is left stranded on a near empty campus. Board and lonely, he stumbles on some online videos,

featuring a French botanist, Alice, played by Leia Sadou, and is captivated by her theory that plants have a highly developed consciousness. Inspired, Tony plans an experiment

and gets in touch with Alice via Zoom to ask for her guidance. Would you supervise me? I know it is quite arrogant of me. I'm a total emitter in your field,

not even an emitter. What I want to test is not so complex, just as you said in your talk, what if they observe us the same way we observe them, to try to create a back and forth between us?

“Are you in Hong Kong? Can you enter the university lab?”

Oh no. You will need some equipment. I'm stuck on an empty campus somewhere in Germany. I see. I'm also stuck at home with a three-year-old.

I'm flipping out for not being able to work. We had to close down everything. I'm not even supposed to be here. I sneaked in to check on an experiment. Actually, I have to go to the greenhouse.

It's not really clear to me what your goal is, but let's see. Tony's experiment involves attaching electronic sensors to the leaves and trunk of a nearly 200-year-old ginko-baloba tree,

and studying the resulting data to see what, if anything, the plant might be trying to communicate. In a way, this tree is the true protagonist of silent friend.

“It's the only character old enough to appear in all three time frames.”

In the earliest story, set in 1908, an aspiring botanist named Greta, played by Luna Vedler,

becomes the first female student admitted to the university.

As she pursues her studies, she trains to become a photographer and develops a deeper aesthetic appreciation of the flowers, fruits, and vegetables that she often finds herself shooting. The third story is set in 1972. A young man named Hanus, played by Enzo Brume,

is tasked with looking after his roommate's prized geranium. In a primitive early version of Tony's 2020 experiment, Hanus finds himself studying and decoding the flower's responses to stimuli. The film cuts vigorously among these three stories,

wrapping them around each other like vines. There's no danger of getting lost, though, since each era has its own distinct visual style. Black and white film for the early 20th century, warm grainy color film for the '70s,

and cool high-deft digital for 2020. Every era, and yet he seems to be saying, has its own technological advancements. Every era also has its own political pressures. In all three stories, the university as a place

where human progress is both nurtured and threatened. Tony has to deal with pandemic isolation and paranoid campus staff. Greater must endure the profound condescension of her all-male professors and peers.

And Hanus finds that even the let it all hang out spirit of the '70s can be unexpectedly stifling. And yet he loves telling tales about misfits and underdogs and infuses them with a magical sense of possibility. In 2017, she directed the Oscar-nominated romance

on body and soul about two slaughterhouse workers who start seeing each other in their dreams. Now in silent friend, she gives us three distinct characters, all outsiders in one way or another, and all of whom use science to push beyond what can be strictly observed.

As wonderful as her three human leads are, especially long, who's as mesmerizing as ever

in his first big European production,

She sometimes frames the actors from high above,

“as if the camera were perched on a branch over their heads.”

In one scene, Greta enjoys a cigarette break under the Ginkgo balloba tree, and we see close-ups of a leaf,

withering on contact with the smoke.

It takes patience to see things from this perspective,

“to appreciate the vulnerability and beauty of a germinating seed,”

a budding flower, or ahead of broccoli.

If you let it, silent friend will gently open your eyes to that beauty.

Justin Chang is a film critic for the New Yorker. He reviewed silent friend, now playing and select theaters. On Monday's show, actor Will Sharp,

“he was nominated for an Emmy for his portrayal of Ethan,”

a tech entrepreneur in season two of White Lotus. He's also starred in the TV show "Too Much" and the film "A Real Pain." Now, he stars as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in a new adaptation of Amadeus. Hope you can join us.

Fresh air's executive producer is Sam Briger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Hertzfeld, and Diana Martinez. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers

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