by Brad Balfour

G21 Contributing Editor

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NEW YORK, NY, USA - Director Dylan Kidd understands something about that dreaded sophomore scare. When he won the debut Tribeca Film Festival's Best Feature Film award for "Roger Dodger," it was for a movie that took years to write and a long struggle to finance. He knew he wasn't going to be on Easy Street with his next film. "When you make your first movie, you know you don't know anything, so you are really free because you're clueless. With the second movie, it's like being that pilot who has 50 hours of flight time. You think you know what you're doing, but you really don't."

The New York based Kidd speaks with maximum pith. That film, "Roger Dodger," was loaded with smart dialogue and a tough performance by veteran actor Campbell Scott who played a character so acerbic as to burn with acid. Now he had to prove that he could do a second film, "P.S.," that didn't simply replicate the first. "I didn't want people to think I was a one trick pony," Kidd acknowledged.

"Our first couple days were really tough because I had to remember that you start from scratch with every movie."

Unlike "Roger Dodger," the lead in "P.S." is a women on the verge of 40 who contends with unfinished aspects of her life. An Admissions dean for Columbia University, she meets a young painter who uncannily recalls her long-dead first boyfriend -- as if he'd been reincarnated before her. "There are similarities between the two films' lead characters." admitted Kidd. "Both are emotionally regressed to a state much younger than their age who bond with much younger characters that are emotionally about the same age."

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Thankfully for Kidd, he managed to get signed on to this project by established producers, Hart/Sharp, who have helped him load up this follow-up opportunity with some of the best talent in the business. Helming the comedic drama was actress Laura Linney, who in a decade or so, has been in more than 20 films including "The Truman Show," "Love Actually" and "Mystic River." And her performance in "You Can Count on Me" garnered her an Oscar nomination for best actress.

Linney wasn't the only one who added weight to the cast. Both Gabriel Byrne and Marcia Gay Harden applied their ample skills to key supporting roles; and sweet faced Topher Grace -- from "That '70s Show" -- provided the youthful love interest for Linney's character.

"I was pretty lucky to have an experienced cast to carry me through. Laura had just finished shooting "Kinsey" [which opens next month] and she had just 48 hours before she had to start working on 'P.S.' She was amazing."

Kidd was basing the film on author Helen Schulman's bestseller of the same name and had the author as his screenplay collaborator. "I am a very slow writer; if I had to do this on my own it would take another few years. So I was really glad to be given material and a collaborator to work with. But it wasn't like we were in a hotel room passing revisions back and forth. I would do a draft; send it to her and she would edit or make suggestions.

"I had never written with a writing partner before. Helen was very gracious about it; it's not an easy process for her to watch her baby get transformed into another medium. The movie and book co-exist nicely. You can read in the book shades that aren't in the movie and vice a versa."

So far he's proven to be a very New York filmmaker, making two films that exploit the environment of the city to good effect. "When we first looked at the film and started to watch it in the editing room, I had the fear that we had made the same movie all over again -- Laura and Campbell's character[s] have a lot in common."

Yet there are distinct contrasts that sets "P.S." apart from the usual romantic comedies and his earlier film. "You don't get a lot of material with a strong female protagonist, but here she is. In making indie films it's almost as if you have to do things differently to set them apart from the way Hollywood would approach the same material -- where everything wraps up neatly.

"We needed to tell the audience that Laura's character was not innocent in the situation with Topher. When you see a romantic comedy, it's usually a Cinderella story. This isn't like that."

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