“It all connects,” Stephen Baldwin’s Ryan, the main character of the film Tapestry, says. Ryan is an executive who first loses his high-powered job and then is invited to join a sales team in a more junior role at the same firm. He is a father of four and a husband who experiences these setbacks with a quiet resignation. His family, especially his dying mother, knows he is suffering, but they don’t know how to help him respond to the challenges and pressures he is facing. God, however, orchestrates a series of seemingly random events that help Ryan to move forward to explore his talents as a writer and to become the leader of his family that his mother tells him that he must become.
By Cristina Slattery for Winter Film Awards
See Tapestry on Friday Feb 21 @9:15pm at Cinema Village (22 East 12th Street) as part of New York City’s 9th Annual Winter Film Awards International Film Festival.
Rob DePalo wrote Tapestry as a short story before turning it into a film with the help of Mike Yacavone and Ken Kushner. He even plays a small role in the film as the father of a young Rose, the character of Ryan’s mother. Rob didn’t expect Stephen Baldwin to say yes to joining the film’s cast, but when he agreed to play the lead, other actors such as Burt Young and Tina Louise, who play Ian and Rose, Ryan’s parents, signed on to the film as well.
The story is based on DePalo’s own life. Some years ago, he was asked to work at the bank he had devoted much of his adult life to at a lower level and given thirty days to agree to the change. DePalo was having issues in his own marriage, much like Ryan, the main character, faces. Tapestry was a 24-page short story initially. DePalo had written since high school and credits his creative writing class at New Dorp High School in Staten Island and a teacher named Leonard Perazzo with helping him explore ideas in an engaging class as a teenager, and and influencing his return to writing years later.
One of DePalo’s goals for the film is to help viewers feel better about their own lives – the main character is going through a depressed period and “we all have challenges,” DePalo notes. “You don’t want to remain a rock,” Burt Young, who plays Ian, Ryan’s father, tells him at one point in the movie and hands Ryan a polished stone. “You have to breathe a little bit,” his father adds and encourages Ryan to try to be flexible with life’s challenges in order to become more like a polished stone.
“It’s like I’m suffocating,” Ryan says at one point. His mother, Rose, provides voiceovers throughout the film and tells viewers that “Ryan’s life was spiraling out of control,” and “he needed to let us help him, to let us into his heart.” Background music with lyrics that include “hear this prayer,” “calm the storm for me,” and “nearer my God,” play at distinct moments in the film. “There is no coincidence, Ryan,” a potential employee applying for a job at Ryan’s firm tells the main character. “Coincidence is just God’s way of remaining anonymous,” she says.
Tapestry helps the viewer believe that this is, in fact, the case. We watch characters that are ordinary flawed individuals struggle to navigate the situations they face as adults. Family is the cornerstone of the characters’ existence in this film and these relationships are what matter most. The characters that we just glimpse, however, are equally important in many ways — the man who wanders off the street to sing “Danny Boy” to an audience of staff members of Ryan’s firm, the passerby who asks Ryan if he is doing OK on a day when he is having a difficult time facing the changes of his employment situation, the young man who offers to help Ryan with a flat tire and, as a result, allows Ryan to run into a friend from high school who reminds Ryan about his love and talent for writing – these characters, though not central, are pivotal. In many ways, they are showing us that God is watching over this character – and all of us – and we need to be aware of the small moments that can help us move forward.
Tapestry is aimed at a Christian audience and the movie does show viewers how faith can have a role in each one of our lives. The overall message of the film and the scenes that are woven together to bring this message to life are poignant. Rob DePalo used to write more science fiction-type stories, but this film in which God sends the main character “messages through angels,” as Rose, Ryan’s mother says in a voiceover, “and finally his ears began to open,” is worth watching since it will allow the viewer to reflect on his or her own life and challenges and see the way in which God may have been guiding him or her.
“Is this really happening?” Ryan asks when he faces the loss of his job. The answer may be “yes,” but as trite as it may seem, Tapestry shows us that there is really a silver lining to the challenges and changes that we face in our lives. Tapestry shows us “hope and faith are great things” as another one of Ryan’s mother’s voiceovers explains. The signs that Ryan sees help him to move into finding his true purpose and a viewer will be left thinking about the coincidences that have occurred in his or her own life as potential messages from God after watching this film.
Cristina Slattery
Cristina Slattery has written for publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek Japan, Forbes Travel Guide, Harvardwood Highlights, Roads & Kingdoms, The Winter Film Festival, FoodandWine.com, Words Without Borders, AFAR.com, Travel+Leisure.com, several airline magazines and other national and international magazines and websites.
About Winter Film Awards
New York City’s 9th Annual Winter Film Awards International Film Festival runs February 20-29 2020. Check out a jam-packed lineup of 79 fantastic films in all genres from 27 countries, including shorts, features, Animation, Drama, Comedy, Thriller, Horror, Documentary and Music Video. Hollywood might ignore women and people of color, but Winter Film Awards celebrates everyone!
Winter Film Awards is an all volunteer, minority- and women-owned registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded in 2011 in New York City by a group of filmmakers and enthusiasts. The program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the NY State Council on the Arts.
