Day 4: Sarah Silverman in I Smile Back, Me and Earl and the Dying Girls Rapturous Premiere

Sundance.org is dispatching its writers to daily screenings and events to capture the 10 days of festivities during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Check back each morning for roundups from the previous days events.

I Smile Back by Eric Hynes

Sarah Silverman has built a career on confidence on being the smartest, funniest, and most brazen person in the room. But after the unveiling of her career-turning, soul-baring dramatic performance in I Smile Back, which premiered on Sunday night at the Library Theater, she seemed utterly disoriented in front of the appreciative crowd. Weird, she intoned into the microphone, then tried to hide behind director Adam Salky.

In the film, she plays Laney, a suburban woman with two adorable children and a successful husband, who nevertheless suffers from depression and addiction. At first she manages to cover most of her tracks, but ultimately spirals into a dangerous maelstrom of alcohol, drugs, sexual promiscuity, rage and self-destruction. She rehabilitates at an addiction treatment center, and tries to reconcile with her estranged father, but struggled to readapt to normal life.

Sarah Silverman on the press line for I Smile Back.

Sundance Institute | Brandon Joseph Baker Silverman spoke of how she came to play the part. I wasn't looking for this, but it came to me. Amy [Koppelman, author and co-screenwriter] heard me on Howard Stern and decided I was Laney, and got in touch with my agent, who loved her book, and forced me to read it. And it's hard for me to read I had to learn how to read first, she said, drawing laughter from the crowd. And I thought it was beautiful and I didn't know if I liked her or not, but I liked how complicated it was. And they wrote a script of the book, and then they let me play it. And why wouldn't I? What am I, busy? Why wouldn't I do something so different where I'm unable to use any of my myriad bag of tricks? Seemingly catching herself for slipping into a comedic routine, she then confessed, I feel such pressure to entertain.

In the post-screening discussion, Silverman, along with Salky, Koppelman, and co-screenwriter Paige Dylan discussed Laney's questionable likeability, and the value of that ambiguity. I understand seeing her sympathetically, and I understand seeing her like, fuck you, we've all had to survive things from childhood. And that's what I like about it. That how you like Laney is going to be subjective and depend on your lives, and that's interesting to me. We can fight about if she's likable or not because we're talking from our own little selves and life experiences.

As for how Silverman's own experiences filtered into her portrayal of Laney, she offered a story about her personal sensitivities. My mother sent me a link, and the subject line said, Elephants Reunite After 20 years.' Now I'm sure it was really beautiful and a happy video, but I didn't watch it. Because my heart can't take it. As well as most Pixar movies. There are certain kinds of beauty that, for someone who might be kind of depressive, it's too much.

And when asked if working on I Smile Back was cathartic, she replied, No, it hurt. But I'm really glad I did it. And came through the other side. And though she wavered between being caustic and confessional during the Q&A, she admitted that the two are actually very related. Comedy I feel is very vulnerable and exposing, and this was both of those things but on the other side of the coin. It was something I'd not experienced before, she said.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jeremy Kinser

Introducing Alfonso Gomez-Rejon's Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Sundance Festival Director John Cooper described the film as the kind programmers are always hoping for. The one that sets the bar for everything else that's going to happen, he added, in what would prove to be an understatement.

Gomez-Rejon has directed numerous episodes of TV series such as American Horror Story and Glee, in which his virtuoso camera work has made him a standout talent on the small screen. However, nothing on his resume quite prepares one for his achievement with Me and Earl, which premiered in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the Eccles Sunday to tremendous applause and quickly launched a record-shattering bidding war for distribution.

The cast of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Sundance Institute | Calvin Knight The story follows Greg Gaines (Thomas Mann), a witty high school outcast who is forced to spend time with Rachel (Olivia Cooke), a girl he barely knows who is dying of leukemia. The title of the film, based on a novel by Jesse Andrews who also adapted it into the screenplay, sets up viewers for a tearjerker, which it is, but the film also delivers as a skillful character-driven comedy that wears its love of cinema on its sleeve (Greg is also an aspiring filmmaker who creates his own clever versions of cinema classics). It's to the credit of both Gomez-Rejon and Andrews that the film never feels sentimental (there's no romance between Greg and Rachel) or false and earns both its tears and laughter.

The director said he took on the project for personal reasons and to process stuff that I'd gone through and come out the other end like Greg. A credit dedicates the film to Gomez-Rejon's late father. Gomez-Rejon told the Eccles crowd how important the Sundance premiere was to him. I've been obsessed with movies since I saw my first one, he said. I've always dreamed of making a film that would premiere at the Sundance Film Festival so the fact that I'm here is overwhelming. The director gave credit to his cast and crew and Andrews' script.

There was so much love on this set, he said. I've never felt anything like it. I hope you feel some

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