The film tells the story of Gloria, a woman who becomes fixated on her boyfriend’s past relationships, spiraling into comparisons that blur the line between curiosity and insecurity. But when she discovers Kaylinn [Meester], the hottest, most basic ex-girlfriend to ever exist, Gloria not only loses herself, she loses control of the story she’s been telling. Loosely inspired by director Chelsea Devantez‘s own relationship with her now-husband, the film pulls from real-life experiences to explore how social media can amplify emotional anxieties in even the most stable partnerships.
ScreenRant‘s Ash Crossan spoke with Devantez and the Basic cast at SXSW in Austin, Texas, last week, where they broke down why the movie intentionally avoids one of the most common storytelling devices in social media-driven stories, while also unpacking how its characters reflect the messy and relatable dynamics that exist both online and off.
Chelsea Devantez: Well, just the social media of it — there’s no pop-ups. I feel like every time they show social media on screen, they’re showing the words as if that’s the most important part of the story. And I do not feel like that’s why we get reports that we’ve been on our phones for 10 hours a day. That’s not the most important part of the story. It’s what happens in your heart. And so, I tried to create a cinematic way to show that without pop-ups. So even though the film is about social media, it’s also not at all.
While loosely based on her own experience, Devantez explained that Gloria [ Ashley Park] and Kaylinn represent both sides of her personality: the “grown version” of herself, and the slightly more toxic one — a version she says everyone has lurking deep inside them.
Chelsea Devantez: They’re both me. They’re two sides of me. Ashley plays Gloria, who is stalking all the people my boyfriend never dated, even though I was currently, happily very much in love with him, and married, but being like, “Who is that?” And Leighton plays Kaylinn, who’s the ex you find that gets under your skin, like, “If you dated her, how could you be with me?” It’s like what they say on The Bachelor. They’re like, “If you like Shelly H, then how could you ever love me?”
Kaylinn’s a more grown version of me, who’s owned a piece of feminism that I think is really important, which is the piece where you are at peace with other women, versus in competition with them. And then Taylor plays Nick, and it’s a little bit based on my husband in that my husband had ghosted this woman, and I was like, “You asshole.” But it had been seven years, and he’s such an incredible husband. But to her, he’s the asshole who ghosted her. And so I wanted to show this character of Nick, like the f–k boy who is really s—-y, even though he’s a good guy, and through growing, will become the really good husband you root for, but is also someone’s toxic f–k boy.
It’s that inner toxicity that Park told ScreenRant viewers will be able to relate to, whether you’re that “toxic f–k boy,” or you have one in your life who you’re hoping will someday change.
Ashley Park: I will say, I think that the reason we all love the script, too, is it’s so relatable for everyone. It’s not only parts of you, I see parts of Gloria and Kaylinn, and Nick in everyone. We all have a little toxic f–k boy who has potential to change.
ScreenRant: So tell me the backstory of how this came to be, because it started as a short. Just tell me the journey.
Chelsea Devantez: So seven years ago, I was on the couch checking my phone, and I saw that a girl my boyfriend had gone on three dates with — seven years prior to that — had deep-liked a tweet in my feed that was a year old. And I was like this [makes a shocked face]. And if you’re like, “Wait, how’d you know she’d gone on a date with him?” Because I’d already stalked her.
And so I realized, I was like, “Okay, I can either start a fight with my boyfriend, or I can make a film about this.” And I did both. The fight was three weeks long, but the film endures. And so I made a short film, and it got into SouthBy for 2020, which, as we know, didn’t end up happening. From there, I met our producer, Katie McNicol, at Marc Platt, and we decided, “Okay, we’re going to make the feature.” And so for six years, we pushed this up the hill, and the only place I wanted to return to with the film was SouthBy, and so we actually wrapped four months ago.
ScreenRant: Oh my gosh.
Chelsea Devantez: And I just ran for my life, because I was like, “I want it to be at SXSW, and come back, and finally show the film here.” So here we are.
ScreenRant: Are you still with this person?
Chelsea Devantez: He’s my husband.
Ashley Park: Good job. You’re the first person to ask.
Chelsea Devantez: You are. Everyone’s like, “Oh, f–k that guy.” And I’m like, “Yeah, I married him. He’s at the Airbnb.” [Laughs]
ScreenRant: I just want to hear from each of you: what attracted you to the story?
Ashley Park: It was easily the best script I’ve read in so long. For me, I was just so excited to see this movie, and I just really wanted to meet her. Her tone was so clear, and then when you watch the movie now, it’s like a warm hug of everything she’s earned, and she is. It’s really fun to be in her world, maybe not like a couple of years ago, but now you’re in a great place. [Laughs]
Leighton Meester: So, I knew Chelsea before, and she’s one of my dearest, dearest friends, and is the best person in the whole wide world.
Chelsea Devantez: She knows the husband.
Leighton Meester: Yeah, the husband. Actually, that’s how we met. I feel like I’ve just known about this entire process, this script, and all the different lives that it’s had through the years, and heard all the ups and downs and backstories. And then I read it, and I wanted to be that basic b—h on Instagram for your movie.
Chelsea Devantez: It’s so good. We went on a double date with Leighton and Adam [Brody], and my husband, Yassir, and it was the first time I’d ever met her. When I walked away, she turned to Yassir and was like, “You have to marry her.” And then he told me in the car, and I was like, “I’m going to put her in a film one day.”
Leighton Meester: Both of those things are fantastic. We manifested it.
Taylor John Smith: Chelsea has one of those amazing, unique voices, and when I read the script the first time, and you laugh out loud, alone in your hotel room, multiple times before you finish the script, it’s like a telltale sign you have to do this movie. And then, hopping on a Zoom with her and getting a chat about it, I’m like, “Oh my God, our fearless leader.” She’s exactly who you want to tell this story, and I don’t think anybody has your voice, and your brutally honest, painfully honest way of portraying these characters, and how tough relationships can be.
Ashley Park: Was it also attractive to you because you hadn’t been in comedy?
Taylor John Smith: Yeah, this was my first time doing a comedy, as well, so it was very exciting to jump into something new and terrifying.
Chelsea Devantez: Meeting Taylor was so funny, because he was like, “I’m in Armenia, and I’m basically playing a guy who’s in psychosis, and I’m saving a woman, and blah, blah, blah, and I’d love to come to your comedy.” And I was like, “It is you.” But his movie before this one was Warfare, so it’s a real change of pace. A real change of pace.
Ashley Park: This is a different kind of warfare in this movie.
The Singing — And Stand-Up — In the Film Are Very Real, And Not At All Basic
ScreenRant: I’ve been reading some really fun factoids about contributions that have happened in this movie from your actors. So can you just tell me some of those things — there’s singing, there’s stand-up.
Chelsea Devantez: Leighton does stand-up in the film, and stand-up in a film is one of my pet peeves, because sometimes people are like, “I’m doing stand-up.” And you’re like, “That’s not what it looks like.” And ideally, you would get a little laugh from it. We worked really hard on it, and Leighton showed up — she had written her own set, and two of the jokes in the film are Leighton originals.
Ashley Park: We should do a bonus feature of 30 minutes of your entire set. She needs a Netflix special after this.
Chelsea Devantez: And then my favorite Ashley story is that Ashley and Leighton wrote an original song for the end credits. Ashley sings on it, and Leighton sings on it, and it is so good. Ashley put it together. I was like, “I think I kind of have this thing.” And she was like, “I’ve got it.”
Ashley Park: I kind of just tricked them. You guys had done voiceover all day. We had four hours to do it, and I was like, “No, come over. It’s just a friendly [thing]. We got it. We’re just going to write poetry.” Got in the studio, and we had the song.
Chelsea Devantez: It’s such a bop, and it’s so fun, and it’s such a cool song and a cool thing to have, because in the movie, she had to crash out, like, every day. So this woman gave me her whole heart and soul, and then she also gave me this summer’s bop. You heard it here first.
ScreenRant: What was it like to get in there, sing together, make a bop?
Leighton Meester: It was just so organic. It just made sense. It was very easy.
Ashley Park: What’s so fun is that it also kind of turned into the story of the movie — in the song.
Chelsea Devantez: And Leighton’s daughter has been singing and making music videos too.
Ashley Park: But I will say, the reason we did it, too, is because I remember in the draft of your script I got first, there’s a button at the end of the movie that I was like, “Oh my gosh, it’s all worth it for this moment.” And we needed a song with the word obsessed in it. And so I was like, “We need this,” ’cause I remember viscerally being like, “Chelsea is just — she’s got it.”
Chelsea Devantez: I was like, “How much is Mariah Carey’s ‘Obsessed?'” And they were like $800,000. And I was like, “What about just for five seconds?” And they were like, “Yeah, that was the quote for five seconds. The whole song is like $2 million.” And I was like, “Can you b—-es write a song?” [Laughs]
The Role Drag Played In The Film’s Costuming
ScreenRant: I want to hear the story behind the costuming in the movie.
Chelsea Devantez: I did drag back in Chicago. I did femme-to-femme drag for, like, four months. But the woman who taught me to do drag is Kat Sass. She has the most incredible visual mind, and she is a drag performer for a living. I asked her to do the costumes for this movie. Visually, we always talked about how you think about the Clueless costumes years on. Clueless has something in common with our film, which is that they had zero dollars for costumes. And I said, “Who can make amazing costumes with $5 and like some hay?” And she did it. Our costume department was run by three drag queens, Discord [Addams], who’s currently on RuPaul’s Drag Race, and their partner Gidget [Von Addams], and Kat Sass were our costume designers.
ScreenRant: Oh my gosh. You know what needs to happen? Guest judges.
Chelsea Devantez: Please.
Ashley Park: Now that we have Kandy’s approval. Kandy’s like, “No, you guys can do it.”
Chelsea Devantez: Kandy Muse is also in the movie. Drag’s a huge part of my life, and my artistry. I just love drag queens so much. So, drag’s a huge part of the movie, and we would love to come on RuPaul’s Drag Race. They’ll be there, and I’ll just be right behind them.
Basic had its world premiere on March 16 at SXSW, and is scheduled for a nationwide theatrical release on May 15.
- Runtime
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96 Minutes
- Director
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Chelsea Devantez
- Writers
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Chelsea Devantez
- Producers
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Adam Siegel, Katie McNicol, Marc Platt, Michael Philip, Nadine DeBarros, Richard Alan Reid
Be sure to dive into some of ScreenRant‘s other SXSW coverage with:
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- I Love Boosters Review
- Dead Eyes Review
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- Kill Me Review
- Ready or Not 2: Here I Come Review
- The Saviors Review
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