“We’re barely ever together as a group,” Wren Cooper moans to her lifelong pals in Sick Girl, the hilarious feature film debut from Jennifer Cram. “That’s the way it goes,” one of Wren’s friends shoots back. Maybe not for long. In the madness of a frenetic gathering, Wren makes a startling announcement: “I have cancer!”

She doesn’t. And Wren herself may not really know why she just blurted it out, but between the thought that she may have peaked in high school and the fact that her now adult friends are seemingly slipping away, she’s desperate to keep the BFFs’ connection alive. Hilarity ensues of course.

The R-rated film stars Nina Dobrev (Fam, The Vampire Diaries) as Wren, Wendi McLendon-Covey (The Goldbergs), Dan Bakkedahl (Veep), Brandon Mychal Smith (Four Weddings and a Funeral), and Sherry Cola (Good Trouble). Filmmaker Jennifer Cram shared more about Sick Girl with MovieWeb in this exclusive interview.

Bad Decision, Funny Outcome
Lionsgate

Sick Girl touches on the relatable themes of friendship and insecurities. When Wren feels her closest friends slipping away, her white lie snowballs into a colossal, life-altering event. The result offers the audience a hilarious take on the price of insecurity and the rewards of true friendship.

Related: Every Movie About Women Friendships That We Can’t Live Without

From the get-go, director Jennifer Cram, who also penned the tale, admitted that the driving force behind the project was to tell a love story of friendship. “I was going through similar things with my friends when I wrote this movie. We were all getting to the age where we were mixed with families and kids and careers, and all that stuff was sort of new. We were trying to figure out how to navigate that, and it was so different to when we’re all together. We had spent so much time together prior to that, and it was just an adjustment, and it’s scary.”

Watching Sick Girl, audiences are bound to realize that yes, some friendships do survive. Creating the right “hook” for the film was vital. And if there’s one thing everybody can share a common bond around it’s illness.

“I wanted to come up with one of the worst things I could think of, and see the bonds of friendship, how close they are, and what a friendship could survive, even with the kids,” Cram said of how the cancer idea came up.

It’s weird, one of the first things I thought someone could do was say they had cancer. It was just something that was not representative, but this isn’t just “a bad person.” It’s just a particular case. I wanted to explore what friends can understand and take.

The C Word

Jennifer Cram wanted to be a storyteller since she was a kid, noting that directing was something she always “secretly” wanted to do. “I just thought I would never be able to do this. Like, I wouldn’t be allowed, that nobody would let me,” she said. “So, after I wrote the film, I met the producer, and she was like, ‘You are the director of this. This is your movie. You know every part of it.’ But even now, it’s hard for me to just be like, ‘Yes, I am a director, I’m a writer.’ I still have a little bit of that impostor syndrome, but I’m working on it.”

Related: Exclusive Sick Girl Clip Teases Nina Dobrev’s R-Rated Comedy

Part of the charm of Sick Girl, is that it’s a story about female friendships, told through the lens of a woman (Dobrev), whose lie about having cancer in a misguided attempt to reconnect with her posse has hilarious ripple effects. Curiously, the film was 10 years in the making. Of the allure of female-driven comedies, Cram said:

“I think it’s because for a long time we didn’t get to see them. I remember just even growing up, desperately looking for movies like that. Now, we’re getting to see many variations. There are endless ways you can tell these stories, and people want to see them. People are hungry for these kinds of stories.”

To Cram’s credit, she offers an interesting twist midway through the film, revolving around Leo, played by Brandon Mychal Smith, who voiced Michelangelo on the incredibly popular Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series.

“I was very conscious of the line I was walking with the cancer element, so I think the character of Leo was incredibly important in that regard,” she said. “Just showing someone who actually is suffering from this disease. I wanted to give another notable look at it, a polar opposite of what we’re looking at already.” She noted that she did get some pushback from studios initially after writing the script.

“There were many companies who were like, ‘We love this, but we just don’t feel comfortable delving there.’ I was aware of it when I was writing it. What I was trying to do was, well, I trust that an audience is going to know that I am not publicizing people who actually have cancer.”

Chances are, the film will be well received. It has all the winning elements of an enjoyable comedy: good writing, a great cast, and even greater hook. “I hope It reminds everyone about their friends and how important those relationships are,” Cram shared. “I hope it reminds them to call a friend that they haven’t spoken to in a while and just touch base.”

Sick Girl opens in theaters, on digital, and on demand October 20.