Irvington Film Screening to Be Attended by Producer Vieira, Writer/Director Liza Johnson

Executive producer and Irvington resident Meredith Vieira and writer/director Liza Johnson will field questions from the audience following the screening of the 2012 feature film "Return" at the Irvington Town Hall Theater on April 20.
 
The film's plot centers on a series of events that take place after a servicewoman returns to the small town in rural Ohio where she grew up following a 15-month tour of duty somewhere in the Middle East (exactly where is not identified). Linda Cardellini, who played Cassie in the 2005 movie Brokeback Mountain and was nurse Samantha "Sam" Taggart in the long-running television series ER, stars as Kelli.

The cast also includes Michael Shannon as her plumber husband (Shannon plays the conflicted FBI agent Nelson Van Alden in HBO's Boardwalk Empire), John Slattery (who plays Roger Sterling, the grey-haired partner at the ad agency in AMC's Mad Men), Talia Balsam and Emma Rayne Lyle.

Although in a non-combat assignment overseas, readjustment does not come easy for Kelli.

Unlike the warriors of another era who were the subjects of the Sam Lewis ditty "How Are You Gonna Keep Them Down on the Farm After They've Seen Paree? (Paris)," she merely would like to resume the life she left—even though it means returning to a tedious and unsatisfying factory job.

Friends, family and acquaintances moved on while she was away and she must cope with her husband's infidelity, satisfying the needs of her two young daughters and confronting an abusive drinking habit. The latter leads to a D.U.I. arrest and compulsory attendance at meetings of Alcoholic Anonymous.

"I wanted things to be like they were when I left. That just never happened," her character relates. 

Johnson has directed, written and produced a number of documentaries and short films; her part-fact, part-fiction "In the Air," shot in her hometown of Portsmouth, Ohio, was nominated for Best Short Film at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2010. Return is her first full-length work.

She was an arts major at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts and is a graduate of the University of California, San Diego.

Johnson lives in Brooklyn and her appearance at the screening on April 20 will be her first visit to Irvington. She has begun work on a second film for Focus Features, a film also having a woman as the central character—this time a working domestic. "It's about how this woman progresses through hardship, friendship, courtship, love-ship and marriage," Johnson said.

Executive producer Meredith Vieira appears five days a week on the long-running ABC half-hour, quiz show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire." She was a correspondent for the CBS 60 Minutes program, an original member and moderator of ABC's "The View," created by Barbara Walters, and co-anchor of "Today" and news commentator for NBC. She is married to former CBS News producer Richard Cohen.

The 98-minute Return, released by Focus Features, will be shown on Friday, April 20 at 8 p.m. A general-admission ticket costs $8—all sales are final. Reservations can be made online.

The Irvington Town Hall Theater is located at 85 Main St., Irvington, NY. The box office phone number is 914-591-6602. www.irvingtontheater.com