L ifestyle /C ulture
Ambler Screenwriter Pens Newly Released Film
ARTS SASHA ROGELBERG | JE STAFF
FOR 10 YEARS, screenwriter
and Ambler native Andrew
Barrer waited for his film “Die
in a Gunfight” to be devel-
oped, produced and released in
theaters. And after a decade of antici-
pation, Barrer’s wait is over. “Die
in a Gunfight” premiered on July
16 and is now in wide release.

Co-written with Barrer by
New York University school-
mate Gabriel Ferrari, “Die
in a Gunfight” is described
by Forbes’ Mark Hughes as a
“modern day Romeo and Juliet.”
As two star-crossed lovers from
rival families Ben Gibbon (Diego
Boneta) and Mary Rathcart
(Alexandra Daddario) rekindle
a teenage romance in their
adulthood, they must outrun
“psychotic and lovable” hitman
Wayne McCarthy (Travis
Fimmel) and escape the feud that
has long afflicted their families.

Barrer knew even as a child that
he wanted to be a writer. However,
philosophy caught his attention
in college, inspiring him to write
stories that explored swathes of
human thought and life.

“Every story is a thought
experiment. So it’s not just plot,
it’s the ethical debate, or the
metaphysical debate at the core
of the story,” Barrer said.

After meeting Ferrari his
freshman year at NYU, where
Barrer majored in philosophy
and Ferrari, visual arts, Barrer
was able to create stories that
fulfilled his artistic vision.

“The joke is that if you take
philosophy and art and smash
them together, you get cinema,”
Barrer said.

It was this synergism of
“analytical” and “whimsical”
that allowed the pair to become
not just colleagues, but “friends
first and co-writers second.”
Growing up a Reform Jew at
Congregation Beth Or, Barrer said
that his religious father helped to
raise him with an “intellectually
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM curious approach to Judaism.”
Though “Die in a Gunfight”
has no explicit influences from
Barrer’s Jewish upbringing, his
open-mindedness around spiri-
tuality and truth-seeking snuck
its way into the film.

“The idea of a guy who is
searching for truth in a world
that is not necessarily prescribing
it for him, this is kind of where
my spiritual upbringing came
into it,” Barrer said.

Through writing “Die in a
Gunfight,” Barrer came to terms
with his own youth and matura-
tion. At the film’s core is not only
a love story, but the account of a
man who has romanticized his
own tragic ending and who must
confront the reality of his future:
one that has a happy ending.

Barrer aged 10 years while
his film was stuck in “develop-
ment hell,” a form of purgatory
for creative works that have
gone in and out of production
without being published. (In
the meantime, he managed to
get a writing credit for Marvel’s
“Ant-Man and the Wasp.”)
In this way, “Die in a
Gunfight” is a time capsule for
Barrer, who himself was afraid
of growing old in his mid-20s
and was fascinated with the “27
Club,” the trend of renowned
musicians who all met a tragic
demise at the age of only 27.

Barrer is now in his 30s, living in
Doylestown with his wife when
he’s not in New York.

“It’s not all about the adven-
ture of self-destruction,” Barrer
said. “That was a lesson we were
learning as we were writing that
screenplay.” Not everyone interpreted
the lessons of the film the way
Barrer hoped they would. The
film has received poor reviews
by critics, which Barrer said
led to the film’s release being
“bittersweet.” “The thing that disappointed
us the most is that it seems as
though the joke didn’t come
across,” Barrer said. “We’re not
actually telling the story about
some cool guy who has this
death wish and is beating people
up and getting into gun fights.

It’s actually ... the story of a guy
who has seen way too many
movies having to grow up and
live a real life.”
But despite movie critics
hoping better for the film, Barrer
believes his future looks bright.

Another film project, “No
Exit,” co-written with Ferrari,
based on a novel of the same
name, will be released on Hulu in
early 2022. It’s a thriller about a
young woman on her way to visit
her mother in the hospital who
sees a young girl kidnapped in
the back of a van. It is produced
by Scott Frank, writer of “The
Queen’s Gambit,” the acclaimed
miniseries on Netflix.

In 2020, Barrer also wrote a
trilogy of novellas, the Young
Blood Trilogy, a dystopian satire
about the unintended conse-
quences of a society that has
been able to reverse the aging
 “Die in a Gunfight” premiered on July 16 and is now in wide release.

process by using the blood of
young people. Published by
Amazon Original Stories, the
trilogy will be adapted into a
film by Amazon.

Barrer looks forward to
collaborating with Ferrari on
the adaptation of his novella,
which he wrote by himself.

Courtesy of IMDb
“It’s never a one-to-one
translation from page to screen,”
Barrer said. “I’m excited to
explore and have Gabe inject
his specific point of view into it.

It will be a lot of fun.” l
srogelberg@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0741
. JEWISH EXPONENT
JULY 22, 2021
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