‘Mini’ grabs the elevator

No studio wanted to make “Mini’s First Time.”

“It was a movie that studios were running from,” says writer-director Nick Guthe. “They loved the writing and it got me a lot of work as a screenwriter, but nobody would touch it with a 10-foot pole. It took six years for it to get made.”

The trepidation is easy to understand. A combination of “Heathers,” “Gaslight,” “Double Indemnity” and “Lolita,” the dark comedy, which opens Friday, revolves around Mini (Nikki Reed), a rich California high school senior with a less-than-perfect home life. Her mother, Diane (Carrie-Anne Moss), is an unloving drunk. Her publicist stepfather (Alec Baldwin) barely notices her. Always looking for kicks, Mini decides to go to work for a high-priced escort service. One night, her client turns out to be none other than her stepdad. The two become lovers and scheme to get Diane out of their lives by driving her insane.

Guthe acknowledges that he never met anyone as calculating and callous as Mini. She is more a manifestation of his interest in creating a character who viewed life “as not about money or success or status but how unique and original your life is.”

There is “an abdication of parenting in America today,” he said, and “the movie is a little bit of a commentary on that.” The easiest way to get his message across was with humor. “I always feel laughter allows people to get into a story so much easier. I just love that kind of comedy that makes you uncomfortable.”

It was Kevin Spacey and his Trigger Street Productions that came to Guthe’s rescue.

“I was driving in my car and heard Kevin on National Public Radio talking about his company and how it was set up to find undiscovered talent and send the ‘elevator back down,’ which is this phrase he learned from Jack Lemmon” -- meaning once you’ve ridden up the elevator of success, send it back down to help others.

So Guthe had his agent send “Mini” to Spacey as a writing sample. “Kevin liked it,” he recalls, and after the rights reverted back to Guthe -- the script had been languishing at another company -- Spacey and his Trigger Street colleagues quickly agreed to do the film.

“They then went to their talent agency and banged the drum.... They found the money that allowed us to make the offers to the actors. Kevin did send the elevator back down to me.”

-- Susan King