page_title: Ally Was Screaming
section_title: Themes and influences
hierarchical_section_title: Ally Was Screaming / Themes and influences
caption_attribution_description: English: Winnipeg, Manitoba
context_page_description: Ally was Screaming is a 2014 Canadian dark comedy-thriller film written and directed by Jeremy Thomas, as well as his second feature film. The film explores the psychological and moral ramifications of "doing a bad thing in order to achieve a good result". Two men grieving for their best friend discover her winning lottery ticket. The men try to figure out how they can keep it, at first fantasizing, then actually debating, and finally plotting to murder the executrix of Ally's estate, her sister, who otherwise would allow the winnings to go to their dead friend's abusive husband.
  Shot in Calgary, where it also had its premiere as the closing gala film at the Calgary International Film Festival, the film features music performed by the Calgary Civic Symphony. It has received favourable reviews from critics.
context_section_description: Jeremy Thomas has remarked that a lot of films are about "how if you do good and you do right you will be rewarded with happiness", while those who do wrong, the "bad guys, will somehow get some sort of karmic punishment."
  If I can boil Ally Was Screaming down to a concept that I found compelling enough to make a movie, it's that goodness is not rewarded by happiness. Some people might interpret that as saying "Well, why be good?" But goodness is still worth it. That's why, for me, it's also an optimistic movie.
  In an interview on the Calgary-based Why We See Movies podcast, Thomas contrasts his film with John Houston's Treasure of the Sierra Madre: whereas that film is about how far greed may drive someone, Ally Was Screaming is different in that Seth and Nole's rationalizations of their actions are so good that "they might be right"; they make "a very compelling argument", one of them even says he will give away his entire share to charity, showing his own motivation is ultimately not selfish. When asked if this is like Robin Hood taking from the rich to give to the poor, Thomas answered: "In a way, yes," and asserted that the film "asks very difficult moral questions." Thomas went on to discuss his theory that audiences "read" movies on a meta level: they are interested in whether the film asserts something culturally, and the most interesting films ask about questions about where the culture is going.
  Thomas cites Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life as one of his favourite movies, and claims to be the biggest collector of the film's memorabilia in Western Canada. He thinks about films such as this and Treasure of the Sierra Madre, films with a lot of character, when writing. His older contemporary, Robert Cuffley, the executive producer of Ally Was Screaming, was a major inspiration for Thomas when he saw Cuffley's debut feature, Walk All Over Me, at the Calgary International Film Festival.
caption: Executive producer Robert Cuffley was a major inspiration for Jeremy Thomas.
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