See 'Good Dick' run

Jason Ritter came to the Philadelphia International Film Festival last spring to promote the relatively small independent film "The Deal," starring William H. Macy and Meg Ryan.

Ritter was back in town Tuesday, with his partner, Marianna Palka, to talk about their even smaller, even more independent film "Good Dick."

It's a sort of an unromantic romantic comedy/drama about a video-store clerk (Ritter) who gets a somewhat obsessive crush on an asocial customer (Palka) who rents porn. Over the course of the film, he tries to bring her out of the crusty shell she's built around herself. Not much else happens, but the characters are drawn deeply enough that their story becomes engrossing.

"Good Dick" was made for $200,000 and Palka said she didn't take the usual route and try to make a movie on that budget that looked like it cost a million.

"I was trying to make a movie that cost nothing," she said.

To accomplish that, the thrifty Scot called in favors, got friends to work for scale (or less) and she and Ritter ("Joan of Arcadia" and son of the late John Ritter) are pushing the film themselves on the cheap. For the Philadelphia visit, they stayed with friends in Villanova.

"We're not diva-ing it," Palka said.

She's even trying to work the selling of the film into her artistic vision.

"The marketing can be part of the creative process," said Palka, over a club soda - see, thrifty - at Parc on Rittenhouse Square.

Ritter added that with Palka working behind the camera and as his co-star, promoting the film is that much easier.

"We always knew we had unlimited access to the writer, director and two lead actors," he joked. "We're a producer's dream."

The "Good Dick" road to Philadelphia started in 2006 when Palka wrote 100 pages of a script with the hope of making a small film her "friends in Scotland could be proud of."

She and Ritter and their producing shingle Morning Knight (Ritter said their goal is to "make films that attempt to redefine the roles people need to play in society") teamed up with Jennifer Dubin and Cora Olson of Present Pictures, raised money, and before the film was completed, "Cora and Jen put it into Sundance," Palka said.

"I was sure it was going to be rejected - I thought Sundance was so corrupt and political - and then it would go to other (smaller) festivals," she added.

But wee "Good Dick" got accepted, leaving Palka with only six weeks to finish the film.

By the time Sundance rolled around, however, the indie distribution scene was drying up and mini-majors were not bidding on too many movies.

Palka said they were offered very small sums for their film and distributors were saying stuff like "We'll take all the rights and you should be grateful to us," she said.

They weren't grateful and they balked - that's the advantage of making a film for less than a studio film's catering budget.

"We weren't that stressed about it," she said.

Then $100,000 deal came in from Europe and the movie's low-key backers allowed them to plow it back into the film to clean up a few technical glitches.

Now "Good Dick" is being rolled out slowly (it opens today at the Ritz Bourse), with Ritter and Palka going city-to-city, staying with friends, to talk about it.

If all goes well, they'll get to make another character-based, little movie.

And come back to Philadelphia to talk about that one.

Maybe next time they'll get a sandwich with the club soda. Live large. *