From KCRW in Santa Monica, this is The Treatment.

I'm Elvis Mitchell. Welcome to the treatment, which you can also hear at KCRW.com.

My guest today, writer-director Craig Zobel, has had a taste of Sundance, working

with his friend David Gordon Green, who, of course, had all the real girls there. He's there for

the first time this year on his own with a really terrific comedy, great world of sound.

That's part comedy, part drama, and also a look at the South in the way we don't often

see the South. Craig, first of all, thanks for being here.

Oh, thanks for having me.

It's a really benevolent look at the South.

Well, one thing that really struck me is that nobody has the same accent and speaks at the

same rate, which is what you always get in Sundance movies where people are from, quote,

unquote, the South.

Yeah, I mean, the South, especially places like Charlotte, which is where the film is, like, set and where we shot.

And, but also, like, Atlanta in several different places, you know, there's so many people that move there.

There's, like, a lot of activity going on there.

I felt like that you never see movies that are about the South that handle it like that talk

about it in present tense almost, you know?

It's oftentimes like there is a lot, still a lot of like overalls and Spanish moss.

It's either like Hicks working on trucks or somebody's about to be lynched.

Yeah, exactly, yeah.

But there's like, there's this business, there's this sort of new business south that I was fascinated with, you know, like that I think is like definitely down there.

Oh, sure, that's south of those strip malls and those mortar courts that is a big part of this movie.

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