Vermont Is for Lovers is a 1992 American romantic comedy film written and directed by John O'Brien. It stars George Thrush and Marya Cohn as two New Yorkers who travel to Tunbridge, Vermont, to marry and seek advice about marriage from local residents.
Plot George and Marya, a New York couple in their thirties, travel to Tunbridge, Vermont, intending to marry at the farm of Marya's aunt Ann. Soon after arriving, they begin arguing, and their pre-wedding doubts become more pronounced.
The couple decide to spend some time apart before the ceremony. Marya stays with her aunt, while George travels around the area and speaks with local residents about marriage and long-term relationships. His conversations with the townspeople gradually become the focus of the film as he seeks advice about married life and reflects on his relationship with Marya.
Cast
George Thrush as George Marya Cohn as Marya Ann O'Brien as Ann
Production Vermont Is for Lovers was written, directed, produced, photographed and edited by John O'Brien, and was produced through Bellwether Films. O'Brien made the film on a low budget, reported by the Los Angeles Times as approximately $80,000.
The film was shot in Vermont, principally in Tunbridge and Chelsea. Rather than working from a conventional screenplay, O'Brien used an outline and approximately three pages of notes, with much of the film improvised. Most of the local residents appearing in the film were non-professional actors drawn from O'Brien's friends and neighbors. George Thrush and Marya Cohn played the central couple, while O'Brien's mother, Ann O'Brien, appeared as Marya's aunt.
Release Vermont Is for Lovers screened as part of the 22nd New Directors/New Films Festival in New York on March 26, 1993. It was subsequently shown at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 1993. Zeitgeist Films handled distribution, and the film opened in Los Angeles on January 8, 1994.
Reception Contemporary reviews were divided. Hal Hinson of The Washington Post criticized the film as an "all-too-easy target for ridicule" and found its central couple irritating, but praised the dry humor of the Vermont residents appearing as themselves. Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times was more favorable, describing the film as "as endearing as it is slight" and praising George Thrush's improvisational performance, the naturalness of the non-professional cast and John O'Brien's portrait of rural Vermont.
Vincent Canby's review in The New York Times was negative. Film scholar E. Deidre Pribram later wrote that the review affected the film's distribution, citing Zeitgeist co-founder Emily Russo as saying that it made an effective New York theatrical opening impossible.
Legacy Vermont Is for Lovers became the first film in O'Brien's series of films set around Tunbridge, later described by The Washington Post as his "community cinema" trilogy, in which friends and neighbors played versions of themselves in fictional stories. Local dairy farmer Fred Tuttle appeared in the film, and his performance prompted O'Brien to cast him in the title role of his next feature, Man with a Plan. The Vermont Archive Movie Project identifies Vermont Is for Lovers as the first part of O'Brien's Tunbridge Trilogy.
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