Retail!, a low-budget indie film recently released on Prime Video, is the result of a lifetime of experience for Eric and Renee Amber.
The siblings grew up at Amber’s Furniture after their father bought the business in the 1970s.
“What we ended up doing is just writing down everything that has actually happened here,” Eric said.
“I won’t get into specifics, but the movie has a lot of real elements.”
During the pandemic, when the store was closed to the public, Eric still went to work every day and started compiling all those stories.
“And so that’s when the idea started to come,” he said.
“I’m sure that everyone who’s ever worked in the service industry or any kind of retail business has their stories about how difficult people can be.”
It took Eric close to two years to write the movie script, and he bounced a lot of ideas off of co-workers that whole time.
“But then you’re like, OK, we’re doing this—you’ve got to cast it, you’ve got to get your crew together, and then you make a date, and then everybody cancels on you because, you know, we’ve got real jobs, right?” he said.
“Then you make a new schedule. … We ran with it.”
Pat Downing works at the store and has a theatre background similar to the Ambers and was asked to direct the movie.
“The whole sort of vibe of the entire production was one of sort of fun,” he said.
“But also absolute professionalism, which is a credit to everyone who worked on it—they knew what the job was.”
Downing says they used a lot of staff from the store in the movie and found local actors and videographers.
Those from outside the business had a hard time believing all the scenarios in the script were based on real-life events.
“They’re like, ‘This is fake,’ and we’re like, ‘No, it’s not fake,‘” he said.
“Everyone also brought their own experiences because a lot of actors work in the service industry to make ends meet, so they’re all like, ‘Yeah, this reminds me of something that I went through with weird customers and weird service people.‘”
Retail! is a humorous look at the furniture business and its customers.
Everyone on the low-budget film crew performed a number of tasks, and Downing doubled as sound engineer.
His challenge was not to laugh during the shooting of each scene, but he was unsuccessful.
“I have a bad habit because I like to laugh,” he said.
“And so it’s very hard when you’re the director, to be ruining scenes because the actors are giving it their all and you’re like, ‘Can we do that again?‘”
Renee was handed a finished script.
She thought it was to evaluate it but was told she was one of the lead characters.
“The other performers in the movie were just a joy to work with, so that’s what’s fun. It’s very hands-on,” she said.
“Part of what I like about the film is that it’s real. It was built by Canadians, for Canadians—by people like us, for people like us.”
The hope is the movie will serve as a pilot for a television series.
“I think it’s obvious that it’s a good concept for a series,” Renee said.
“There’s just no end of content. My fingers are crossed absolutely, like whatever will be, will be, but I think that it feels right.”
“I hope people recognize that these are important types of films,” Downing said.
“Because there’s just a nice comedy that’s not offensive or trying to screw with your brain or anything like that. It’s good for you. Laughter is like the best medicine.”
“It’s just out on Prime Video, and so far, so good,” Eric said.
“We’re getting good ratings, but if nobody knows that the movie’s out there, then they don’t know, so that’s why we’re telling people about it.”
You can learn more about the movie here.
