Vanity Fair star Olivia Cooke has said she thinks there is not enough sentimentality in the world and people have become too cynical.
The actress is currently starring in the drama Life Itself, penned and directed by This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman, and said working with the filmmaker gives her hope.
The film, which also stars Olivia Wilde, Oscar Isaac and Antonio Banderas, proved controversial with critics when it was first screened at the Toronto International Film Festival last autumn, but Fogelman defended his use of sentimentality in a column in trade publication Deadline.
MUST READ: director @Dan_Fogelman's guest column for @DEADLINE on sentimentality and why he made #LifeItself.
"I made this film so people could walk out of a movie theater feeling better than they did when they walked in." ❤️https://t.co/H8YtGlH4SR
— Life Itself (@LifeItselfMovie) September 7, 2018
He wrote: “It is not easy, these days, to choose to see the beauty in the human experience.
“It is not in vogue and it is certainly not considered ‘cool’ or ‘artistic’.
“Ugliness envelops us right now.
“The internet is filled with trolls and sceptics, haters and hackers.
“It is a scary choice, these days, to make anything that leads with its heart.
“Leading with your heart exposes your most crucial organ to those very trolls and sceptics and yes, sometimes, the most cynical of film critics.
“But I choose to see connections in our existences.
“I choose to see the romance, and the beauty that is often born from tragedy.”
Responding to Fogelman’s column, Cooke told the Press Association: “I thought it was bang on.
“I think there is not enough sentimentality in the world, I think we have sullied ourselves with being quite cynical all the time.
“And especially day to day, where you wake up and you’ve got a news feed of what (Donald) Trump has done or what Theresa May has done, it’s so nice to go and watch a film where you are able to make those tenuous human connections and if you carry that on to life I think that is really brilliant.
“But I think especially with this film, it gives me a little bit of hope, especially just for Dan, that Dan is in the world and making films like this unabashedly, I think he’s such a tonic.”
She added: “The thing I love about Dan’s writing is he has all these separate storylines going on and he ties them so well together in a bow and things that shock you as well and it’s always about lineage and I really find it fascinating, he does it with such humour and wit and then just delivers such a gut punch and I thought it was great.”
Life Itself is in UK cinemas and available on Sky Cinema now.