Sex Factor

For most children your parents are a constant source of embarrassment. But director David Frankel was not most children, and his parents were certainly not most parents. Frankel’s father is Max Frankel, Holocaust survivor, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, ex-White House correspondent and former editor of the New York Times, whose acquaintances included Presidents Richard Nixon and Lyndon Baines Johnson.

“I think the highlight was meeting LBJ. That was pretty remarkable,” says the warm and funny Frankel. “We flew down to the LBJ ranch outside San Antonio and he gave us tours and let us ride ponies. It was a very special experience.”
Frankel aimed to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a journalist. He soon realised the world of objective, fact-based stories wasn’t the ideal medium to share the funny, emotional tales he wanted to tell.
“I was deeply inspired by Woody Allen and really appreciated the work of Mel Brooks. Life is hard for most of us. If you can laugh it makes it bearable. As satisfying as it is to work on great dramas, comedy is even more pleasurable.”
So Frankel turned to film and television, slowly climbing the ladder of witty, often controversial comedies. Soon he was notorious. His short-lived 1992 series Grapevine was banned by two television stations for its blunt dialogue about sex.
“Grapevine was pretty unique for the time in terms of talking about sex. And I do think it chartered the way for shows like Sex and the City.” The latter is a show Frankel worked on subsequently. He attributes the appeal of these icons of TV to the raunchy subject matter.
“You’ve got to provide something that the audience hasn’t seen before, that’s going to be so thrilling that they want to watch – even though you don’t have special effects and people just sit on couches and talk. Intimate talk about sex is one of those things. It’s like eavesdropping. You can’t help it! And we all want to talk about it. If I go out to play golf with my golf buddies, inevitably everyone ends up saying that we’re not having enough sex. It’s something you have to laugh at!”
Other career highlights included an Academy Award for his short film Dear Diary and box office hits with Marley & Me and The Devil Wears Prada. However for Frankel, it’s the films that have a personal connection to his life that he remembers. That is why his 1995 debut Miami Rhapsody and his latest Hope Springs are closest to his heart.
“Miami Rhapsody was a pretty personal script, as Sarah Jessica Parker tries to intellectualise her fears and hopes about marriage – which never really works! My wife and I got married very late, for lots of reasons. One was the sense marriage seems so difficult when you’re on the outside. So many people stumble into it and then stagger out of it, and it didn’t seem worth the effort for all the pain marriage seems to cause. Luckily I can say we’ve been married 15 years and it’s totally been worth the effort.”
In Hope Springs Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones play a married couple who have lost the ability to be intimate with each other, emotionally and physically. They attend couples’ counselling under the guidance of Steve Carell’s therapist.
Hope Springs has already garnered great reviews. Frankel, meanwhile, is busy working on One Chance, a fictionalised account about the rise of Britain’s Got Talent winner Paul Potts, to be played by James Cordon. (Despite internet rumours, Frankel insists that “Katy Perry is not going to be starring.”)
On the downside, however, all this talk about intimacy and sex has ironically landed the director in serious trouble with his wife.
“I dragged my 10-year-old kids to the premiere of Hope Springs and my wife had to drive them back to the hotel afterwards, and deal with a few questions. She had to try explain what oral sex was. I got a lot of flack about that!”

Hope Springs is in cinemas now.