If you need an introduction to Rob Reiner, it's likely that you haven't seen very many films. The multitalented Director, Actor, and Activist has been making films for years, most of which are prime examples of their respective genre's. He essentially invented the "mockumentary" with "This Is Spinal Tap," made the perfect drama in "A Few Good Men," the ultimate fantasy film with "The Princess Bride," the brilliant coming of age film "Stand By Me," and too many others to count.

Reiner was kind enough to sit down with ConversantLife for a 1 on 1 interview to talk about his newest film "Flipped," family systems, and the importance of connecting with others.

Christopher Faris: I like to think about how film and therapy can inter-connect.  This is a great film for that, especially with communication, other perspectives, etc.

Rob Reiner: Hopefully, the audience will get from this besides from the fact that we are hopefully capturing what it means to fall in love for the first time – those very powerful, confusing feelings – hopefully they will see the importance of connections, real connections in a family and how positive that can be for somebody’s growth.   Brice is very lucky in that he has a Grandfather that comes along at a point in his life where he’s going through that very confusing time and he has somebody to be a moral compass for him and to kind of guide him and help him navigate those feelings because he is growing up in a household where the wrong things are valued, really.  It’s more about material things and not about human connections. 

Then you have this other family across the street.  To me the most important scene in the movie is where they go to visit the Uncle who is retarded because it shows how important it is to take care of the family and to make those strong connections with family.  That’s the atmosphere that Juli is raised in as opposed to this other atmosphere that Brice is raised in.  He’s lucky that he’s got somebody to guide him onto the right path.

CF: Which is interesting because one of the popular beliefs in therapy is about your family system and the kind of child that’s produced.  The film is actually very blatant about the different family set-ups and the way the kids respond to that.

RR: That’s right, and Brice has to struggle with not going against his father, and we all do.  The Father and Mother are the most powerful and important influences in your life. 

CF: Yes

RR: So, you can’t imagine that your Father could be doing anything that would be wrong, or that isn’t so beneficial.  Yet, he starts to question his Father right around the time that his Grandfather comes to live with him…We never get into this in the film, but in my mind, I’ve always felt that the Grandfather – he’s the Father of the Rebecca DeMornay character – I always felt that he felt that his daughter was marrying the wrong person.

But you can’t say anything, because I know that he had a great marriage – the grandfather did - when he talks about his wife had just passed away and he talks about the thing of when you meet somebody who is “iridescent,” you don’t give that up, you don’t let that go.  He talks about his wife that way and then about Juli that way.  Luckily for Brice, he comes along and is able to make Brice see that maybe some of the things that his Father is talking about are not all that accurate and right.

CF: I learned this for the first time this morning (at the press conference) that the characters (Brice’s parents) actually divorce in the book.

RR: It doesn’t say they divorce in the book. What it says is it looks like they are heading in that direction, that there are problems in the marriage and you get the sense that that’s probably where they’re heading.  That all comes out in the book after Brice tries to kiss Juli in Juli’s section of it, which is very much late in the book.  We tried to figure out a way of working that in, but we felt that the movie is really about the boy and the girl.  Since that most emotional thing is happening to her, and she’s running away and she is all mortified by it, we have to stay with what she is going through and not get into what the Father and Mother are going through across the street.  We tried to figure out a way to get it in but we couldn’t figure it out.

CF: I had a question about how you came to this story.  You’ve directed films that sit at the top of their genre’s  - with horror (Misery), with romantic comedies (When Harry Met Sally), even with coming of age film’s with Stand By Me.  What does it take to get you interested in a movie like this?

RR: Well I have to connect with what the characters are going through.  When I read the book, it was like - it was me.  Even though it was set today - that’s why I set it back in the 50’s, the late 50’s, because it felt like…it was just what I felt like when I was going through that time in my life.  I thought today, no matter who reads this book, no matter what age they are, they’re gonna relate to it and say, “Yes! That’s what I went through!” It doesn’t matter when it takes place.  Years ago somebody saw “Stand By Me” and said, “I love the movie because it was exactly my childhood.” And I said, “You mean you grew up in a rural area?” (they replied) “No, I grew up in Manhattan.” It’s not about where or the time period.  It’s about the feelings, and you try to strip those feelings away.

CF: You commented before about it not being set it present day, not only with your childhood and how you connect with it.  But what are the distractions?  It is well know about your involvement in early childhood education – what are some of the things you think are distracting kids today?

RR: I think you hear that everybody’s got ADD, everybody is being diagnosed with ADD.  I think we’ve got a whole generation of people that have got ADD.   It started with music videos and commercials and very fast cut things.  Then, you add in facebook and texting and computer games, and everything is so fragmented and everybody is distracted.  Nobody can follow through on a thought, you know?  It’s all truncated.  So I think that’s what’s tough for kids now.  But the feelings are still the same even they are distracted with all this technology, they still have those feelings.

CF: In this movie, emotionally you cover so much territory – grief and loss, pain, there’s the family systems, and of course the first love.  Can you talk about your first love?

RR: Well, first one I was 12, almost 13 – same time period.  Her name was Kathy Shrillo.  She reminded me a lot of Hayley Mills, she had this kind of short curly hair, from "The Parent Trap" when I was growing up.  She was very athletic, very much like a tomboy.  I remember going to try and kiss her in the alley just outside our house, and she hit me in the hand with her hairbrush.

I knew I was in love, because I was willing to endure pain to get a kiss.

CF: So it’s going to be easy to compare this film to “Stand By Me” for the time periods, but what are the differences?

RR: Well, the only difference really is that “Stand By me” is about the power of the friendships that you have when you’re twelve.  We say at the end of the movie, and it’s at the end of the book in “Stand By Me” that you never have friends like you did when you were twelve.  That’s about male friendships and what happens between boys when they are going through that period.  This is about the first feelings of love and what happens between a boy and girl of that time period.  So it’s similar in that way, it’s just exploring those two different things.

CF: Your style of filmmaking and what you bring to cinema now, and with what cinema is doing – how do you see yourself in the world of cinema presently?

RR: (Grins) I’m a dinosaur, I’m a dinosaur babe!  Listen, it’s moving more and more towards technology and CGI, and comic book heroes and futuristic and explosions, and you know, action stuff.  I think it’s tougher for young filmmakers now to really express themselves.  I came up in the 80’s, and in the 70’s there were still filmmakers – Scorsese, Coppola – guys who were making films that were more about their experiences.  They took from the auteur films of the 50’s and 60’s which was Truffaut and Antonioni, and all of those guys.  Films were an expression of a filmmaker – you were going to express yourself on film. 

Now young people growing up they have to plug themselves into this runaway technology thing and they’re making those things.  The technology becomes the star or the story rather than the human part of it.  So like I say, I’m a throwback – I’m a dinosaur.  But I do believe that people still are interested in stories about real things, because real people live on the earth.  That’s what (the kind of movie) I hope to keep doing.

CF: Before we end, can I ask you what are one or two of your favorite films?

RR: “It’s A Wonderful Life” is one of my favorites, probably my favorite, and of course “Citizen Kane” for everybody.