James White (2015) on Netflix
James White, twenty-something and unemployed, lives in New York with Gail, his ill mother. He wants to leave for Mexico with his friend Nick, but Gail says she needs him.
- Netflix3.1/5
- IMDb7.1/107,577 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes92%
Trailer
Plot summary
At his father's funeral, James White, a twenty-something New Yorker with no job, meets Karen, the woman his father married, and Nick, a friend who works at a Mexican resort. Ben, who knew his father and works for a magazine, offers condolences and mentions he might find James work. James believes he is a writer. He lives with Gail, his divorced mother, who is ill, and tells her he needs to get away and will return to Mexico with Nick. Gail reminds him that she depends on him. In Mexico he parties and meets Jayne, a young woman from New York who shares his taste for drink and drugs. Gail calls and asks her son to come home, and Jayne travels back with him.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about James White (2015)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Writer-director Josh Mond wrote the script to explore and understand his own feelings after losing his mother to cancer in 2011.
- Cynthia Nixon and Josh Mond both lost their mothers to cancer; Nixon, a cancer survivor, based her performance on Mond's mother and her own and wore her mother's jewelry in the film.
- Josh Mond wrote the lead part of James White for Christopher Abbott after making the experimental short film '1009' with him in the leading role.
- While writing the script, Josh Mond listened to the albums of Scott Mescudi, also known as Kid Cudi, for inspiration, and Cudi went on to curate the film's music.
- Borderline Films, the production company Mond founded with Antonio Campos and Sean Durkin, turned to a Kickstarter campaign to pay for the film's post-production editing costs and music rights.
