Tina Kakadelis
For a certain group of teens, there was nothing more romantic than Nicholas Sparks. He was a master of tearjerker, swoonworthy romances in the early-aughts. One of his most famous books that was adapted into a film, A Walk to Remember, centered on a teenage girl with cancer who caught the eye of the hot bad boy in school. Writer, director, and actor Alex Dvorak was also a teenage girl with cancer, but instead of starring in a real-life Nicholas Sparks movie, Dvorak describes herself at that time as “bald and weird.” Nevertheless, A Walk to Remember captured her attention and, in perhaps a roundabout fashion, inspired her Oscar-contending short film, Bad Survivor.
“If A Walk to Remember was ever on TV, my high school best friend and I watched it, no matter where it was in the story. We just watched it over and over and over,” recalls Dvorak. “Then she came to visit me when I was in treatment.”
“I had to drop out of college to get chemo full-time and I moved back in with my parents in DC. All my friends were in colleges all around the country, so they could only really visit me during Christmas break,” she explains. “My best friend came over and we’re watching TV, flipping channels, and A Walk to Remember was on. I was like, great, we found what we’re going to watch, so let’s go.”
“She took the remote from me and said there was no way in hell we were watching it. I was like, what are you talking about, we always watch A Walk to Remember. Of course, I’m sitting there bald, having to inject myself with white blood cells, very much in the midst of treatment and very, I’m sure, frail-looking to others.”
“My friend was like, no, it’s gonna make you sad. I know what happens in the end. We’ve seen it a million times. But I’m not unaware that cancer kills and I know that could very well happen to me tomorrow, but it’s A Walk to Remember! This is the most idyllic version of cancer. This is nothing like what I’m going through. Mandy Moore’s character speaks really softly and energetically, she has long hair with braids, and the hottest guy in school falls in love with her.”
“It was just the opposite of my experience,” states Dvorak. “I kind of wanted to watch it as an ideal version of cancer or something. In creating Bad Survivor, I really felt called to make something that felt more resonant to what my real experience was. I wasn’t angelic or overly romanticized. The hottest guy in school did not fall in love with bald, weird, sarcastic me. I couldn’t live up to anyone’s expectations of being some kind of inspirational cancer patient or survivor.”
“I love the film for exactly what it is. I never went to it as a realistic depiction of treatment in any way, shape, or form. Though,” she pauses for a moment. “Maybe at first the film made me think that was going to be my life as a teen in cancer treatment. I was sorely mistaken and very quickly humbled.”
Dvorak began telling her story through personal essays in publications like The Washington Post and Business Insider. In the back of her mind, though, has been visual media. Bad Survivor is her debut short film as writer, co-director, actor, and producer. The film came out of her experience as a teenager, but it was also a means of redefining what a cancer story looks like.
“The second I say the word cancer, it really turns people off or they immediately feel sadness. With Bad Survivor, I wanted audiences to land in this slice of life,” she explains. “I wanted them to be able to experience this world about someone with cancer within a sense of dark humor. When explaining the TV series I want to make or pitching it to people, I really felt like a short film was going to get the point across exceptionally well.”
“Instead of having to explain it, I was like, here, watch this. This person is actually a main character, not the side character who gets cancer who helps the healthy main character figure out their life. This person has an entire complete life and has an incredibly dark sense of humor that I really wanted to come across.”
Bad Survivor immediately introduces viewers to this sense of humor with its opening quote: “Any similarities to persons living or dead is very much on purpose. You know who you are.” Not only is this the audience’s first look at the film, but it’s also the first look at Dvorak as a filmmaker. Her first words are a little angry, a little funny, and a perfect means of explaining how she wants Bad Survivor to disrupt the status quo.
“I kind of tricked myself into thinking, what is the scariest thing I could write and put out there?” she recalls. “What can this character say that would really make me feel vulnerable? In doing so, Bad Survivor felt so autobiographical that I kind of couldn’t pretend it wasn’t my experience with friendships and my family at the time, so I leaned in. I cast my family to play my family. I had them say things that they had said to me in real life. I really asked everyone to buy in and kind of play with me.”
“With the pretend legal language in the beginning, I wanted to set the tone that this is the main character’s sense of humor, right?” asks Dvorak. “I wanted to set the tone that I guess I can’t pretend I’m not coming for you. We’re all going to joke about this, and we’re going to find a way to laugh at the crazy stuff people say to you when you’re a teenager and you’re bald, you know?”
In a Fleabag fashion, the teenager at the heart of Bad Survivor, Alex (played by Dvorak), periodically breaks the Fourth Wall. Sometimes just with a glance and sometimes with some well-chosen words. It continues the feeling that this is a character in a situation she can’t fully vocalize, but is also able to, despite the heaviness, find some humor in what she’s going through. Mirroring the breaks is the score by Thomas Yount, which balances the humor and the weight of Alex’s life at the moment.
“Breaking the Fourth Wall felt like the one thing I knew for sure I wanted in this film. That was really the basis of where everything kind of grew from. At first I had debated, should it be a voiceover or how do I find a way to bring the audience into Alex’s inner world? In my real-life experience, and many of my friends who are survivors have also shared similar experiences, we often aren’t able to find the language to say out loud how we’re feeling.”
“We don’t ever want to make anyone feel bad. Everyone’s just trying their best, you know? We’re going through so much. It was just incredibly important for me to find that tool to bring the audience into her inner truth. In real life, if you’re pissed off at your oncologist, you’re not really going to say it to them, but you might be thinking all these crazy things. I wanted the audience to be let in on that world, for better or for worse. It was sort of scary to share those inner thoughts, but I thought, okay, if we’re going to go for it, let’s go out on a big swing.”
“In terms of the music, that was so, so, so important to me,” continues Dvorak. “Thomas and I worked diligently, truly frame by frame, to figure out how to dial up the emotions that hopefully the audience is already feeling.”
“We had really specific sounds that I wanted. For instance, the scene where she’s in bed with her radiation mask, I wanted the second she touches the mask for this sound to go sharp. I wanted it to seem eerie, really weird, and kind of disturbing that she would then put it on. In her mind, she’s clinging onto her radiation mask like it’s a safety blanket or a teddy bear, the way I did in real life. I’m sure from someone who doesn’t know what a radiation mask is, that’s probably really unnerving and pretty weird behavior.”
“The first half of the film is largely silent, and it’s really just the dialogue back and forth with quick movements. In the second half, there’s no dialogue and it’s her alone in her room. That’s where I felt the music could really shine and come to the forefront.”
Bad Survivor is in contention for this year’s Oscars, which is a completely surreal feeling for Dvorak on a multitude of levels. From a personal and professional standpoint, it’s an incredible honor.
“It’s insane,” Dvorak laughs. “That statement is insane. I didn’t know that anyone was ever going to want to see this or understand this. It just feels like something I’m sharing from the dark recesses of my mind. I don’t know that anyone’s going to get it, laugh at it, or understand it in any way, shape, or form. The fact that we’re here, two years into a film festival run and talking about the Oscars…that’s wild and incredible.”
Beyond the personal, Dvorak also considers what it means for a story of a “bad” cancer survivor to be recognized on a scale like this. It’s an encouraging, exciting moment for Dvorak.
“I feel very grateful that stories of cancer patients and cancer survivors, especially those from adolescents and young adults, could potentially start conversations among families and caregivers who maybe don’t understand what their loved one may be going through. It’s really important to me to make an impact on that level. I’ve always thought of Bad Survivor as a launching pad and the starting point for the larger TV series that I’ve envisioned, because I feel like there’s so much more to explore.”
“What a crazy experiment, right? To recreate the most traumatic time in your life, but actually have something to say, you know? I could talk back this time. I could say it to the camera and it felt so liberating. I’ve tried in my remission to study people, well-known or not, who have gone through trauma and have transformed their lives into ones of joy and empowerment. To actually be going through those motions myself feels amazing.”
Inevitably, the conversation turns back to A Walk to Remember. Is there any world where Alex, either the real person or her fictional counterpart, would get along with Mandy Moore’s Jamie?
“Wow, I’ve never considered this,” ponders Dvorak. “I guess…not at all. Alex from Bad Survivor is unable to live up to the expectations of being the inspirational cancer patient or survivor among her own friends, but also among fellow patients and survivors. She’s watching the person who just finished treatment yesterday and is raising millions of dollars for cancer research today. Or the one who is speaking eloquently about their experience and wearing the cancer ribbon t-shirts. The epitome of a good survivor.”
“Then there’s Alex, who’s terrible in every way, shape, or form. She’s begging for her morphine drip, doesn’t know how to relate to others, and certainly isn’t inspirational in any way. Seeing Jamie from A Walk to Remember be so inspirational, sweet, angelic, and kind…Alex in real life admires her in some way. Bad Survivor Alex in early remission would not. I don’t think she would be able to even understand how to compose herself in such an angelic, sweet, beautiful, kind way. She’s leaving a trail of fire everywhere she goes.”
But what about A Walk to Remember’s hottest guy in school, Landon Carter?
“Oh, they would love each other,” Dvorak says quickly. “Well, I don’t think Landon would be in love with her. Let me be clear. Not in a romantic way anyway, but I’m sure Bad Survivor Alex would be obsessed with him, as I am in real life.”
