Sometimes loyalty can be dangerous, and that’s the ride that Eenie Meanie takes viewers on through the love story between characters Edie and John. The film stars Samara Weaving and Karl Glusman.

A cautionary tale about how the lengths one may be willing to go for those they love can turn into the same thing that leads to their demise, the film, directed by Shawn Simmons, is much more than the heist movie it appears to be.

‘Eenie Meanie’ is more of a dark, twisted lover’s tale.

“I’m glad that you called it a love story, because it is a love story,” Simmons told Blavity’s Shadow and Act in a recent interview. “As much as people might call it a heist movie, it’s really like a dark, romantic comedy, if anything, at times.”

He added, “I grew up in a tough, blue-collar town in Massachusetts, and I grew up in a place where there were strange shapes of family. A lot of my friends lived with their grandmother, and that was their mother, per se, and, you know, some people had to move into their girlfriend’s house because their situation was bad. In the end, the whole story is about why him, and why them, in a way that sometimes, when somebody is your only family you’ve ever had in your whole life, it makes it a lot more complicated to get away from them. Usually in a movie, there’s some sort of fantasy element, and the fantasy element that we all relate to is, like, who doesn’t want someone to love them like that? He loves her to his grave, and so when you talk about loyalty in a world where it’s hard to survive, it means a lot.”

What the actors have to say about loyalty

“Maybe loyalty is something to question sometimes,” Samara Weaving told us, when asked what she’s learned about the trait through her portrayal of Edie. “Just because you’ve known someone for your whole life, maybe you don’t have to do everything for them all the time, which I think is good. It’s good to challenge your relationships and set boundaries. This is a movie of what not to do.”

Karl Glusman, who steps into the role of Eenie Meanie‘s John, added, “Sometimes the thing that holds people together is purely history. Growing up together, being in a relationship for a long time, but people grow. Relationships grow. People mature, and some people and relationships can stay stagnant, and they can grow cole. Like Sam said, you do have to reassess things at times because sometimes things become unhealthy, and the only thing keeping you together is this sense of loyalty, of history. But actually, maybe that person is really not serving your greater good. They’re really toxic to you, and emotion makes those decisions, like breaking away from something that’s detrimental to you; it can make it impossible. Emotion can really get in the way. I’ve broken up with friends. We don’t really have a word for that, but it can be very hard to do, and this movie made me kind of reassess some stuff in my own life.”

The biggest takeaway, according to the director

As the director, Simmons said that if viewers go in thinking one way about the film they’re about to consume with Eenie Meanie, but leave with the unexpected, he and the team have done a great job.

“The headline of me making this is always in a way that we don’t get from a lot of movies these days. I hope you go in thinking you’re getting one thing — this popcorn thrill ride that’s fun and funny, but you get a whole lot more,” Simmons shared. “Props to 20th for being as daring as they were to have anything like this.”