Getting help works for this filmmaker

NEWTON -- Filmmaker Oren Rudavsky sits on the steps of the tidy Newton neo-Colonial where he grew up, the son of a rabbi . He points to the driveway where he used to play kickball, and to the tree-shaded pathway where, one Halloween night more than four decades ago (he's 50 now), a neighbor's dog leaped at him -- Rudavsky was shielding his own terrified dog in his arms -- and cut a 12-stitch gash mere millimeters from his right eye, jeopardizing the career he hadn't even begun to visualize.

It's partly on this street that, at 16 , Rudavsky -- already steeped in the stories of Bergman , Fellini , and Satyajit Ray from forays to the Brattle and the Orson Welles -- made his first film with a Newton South classmate. For "A Grave Undertaking," a silent two-hander about an obituary writer who haunts a celebrity, one boy would act as the other filmed. "We showed it at the school May Fair. People started out being noisy and not paying attention. Then they quieted down and really responded to the movie. It was a shock" -- and a filmmaker was born.

It was around this time that Rudavksy, struggling to cope with his parents' divorce, first sought therapy -- the theme of his first narrative feature, "The Treatment," which opens Friday. He would return to Newton, as a 21-year-old Oberlin student putting in a final semester at NYU, to make "A Film About My Home," a documentary meditation on his mother's death and the possibility that the house would be sold (his eldest sister, a labor lawyer "on the good side," now occupies it with her husband, who teaches English at Newton South ).

This project, which marked Rudavsky's only appearance as an on-screen narrator (he calls his performance "a Woody Allen-ish monolog ue "), won an honorable mention at the 1981 New England Film Festival , and a film he subsequently shot in Ohio, "Dreams So Real," about a trio of mental patients, took first prize in the same festival. "I thought, ' This is easy! ' "

A slog of odd jobs undertaken to support his documentary habit -- from selling cheese at Faneuil Hall to scraping paint in Manhattan apartments -- disproved that notion, but he hung in there. "Making films is tough, and making documentaries is crazy. I generally decided to live on nothing -- eat rice and beans." Whenever he couldn't make the rent, he recalls, "I'd add roommates."

Today his Upper West Side roommates consist of his wife, documentary producer Judy Katz, and two children (one of whom appears in the film ) . The making of "The Treatment" seems to have fallen into place with near-miraculous ease.

He'd been working on a "half-documentary, half-fictional" project tentatively titled "Shrink Stories," when interviewee Melissa Bank, author of " The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing" (the movie version of which, "Suburban Girl," recently debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival ), suggested he read Daniel Menaker's 1988 novel, "The Treatment" -- "and I thought, ' This is what I should do. ' " Menaker, who has since ascended to executive editor-in-chief of Random House, graciously granted the rights and even lent the boardroom for some preliminary readings.

Rudavsky knew from his documentary experience that he was "good at structure and building to the filmic moment," but he had no experience screenwriting. "A sculptor who works in the building where I have my office said, 'You should meet my son.' " Enter Daniel Saul Housman, a former Miramax script editor, who did the bulk of the writing. Says Rudavsky, "I take 35 percent of the blame."

What he can take full credit for is the letter that won him the participation of Sir Ian Holm as the outrageous Argentine analyst Ernesto Morales. Once that key piece of casting was in place, other name actors clamored to climb on: Blair Brown, Roger Rees, and Harris Yulin all accepted small roles at what Rudavsky describes as "below the low-budget SAG minimum."

Chris Eigeman, who as Jake Singer, the analysand/ protagonist, is in virtually every scene, points to a certain "Darwinism" that prevails in the world of independent film: "Truly, the people who are supposed to be doing it will be doing it -- because there's no lure otherwise," he says when reached by phone at home in New York. "It's not like a shoot with a $20 million paycheck, where there's just wild miscasting."

There were a few tense moments when, two weeks prior to shooting, the role of Jake's love interest, Allegra, remained unfilled. Then Famke Janssen -- "who's used to $50 million films," Rudavsky notes -- signed on. A slight period of adjustment ensued. "I remember her saying, 'My dog, Licorice, can stay in my trailer.' I said, 'There is no trailer -- let alone lunch.' "

Still, Janssen soon fell in step with the low-budget gestalt. Rudavsky pulled off the project for "well under a million [dollars] " -- thanks in large part to the friends who lent locations ("and they're still friends," he marvels). And Janssen hit it off so well with Eigeman that, when, post-"Treatment," he returned to writing his own directorial debut film, "Turn the River," he revised the lead with her in mind.

The 25-day shoot was not, as the buoyant end result would suggest, a walk in the park. Eigeman recalls some "script struggles" over the dialogue not prescribed by the original text: "On our days off, we'd be working through other scenes." For his part, Rudavsky went on medication "for the first time in my life" -- not to get to sleep, but to stay that way when he had fallen asleep (he mimes a Munchian 2 a.m. awakening).

Eigeman has only one regret: that in most of his scenes with Sir Ian, he was on the couch, with his back to the master. "It was like a bad O. Henry joke: Yes, you will get your dream, to act with one of the greatest actors ever -- but you will not be able to see what he's doing. Like: 'Oh, I forgot to ask the genie for that part of the wish.' It drove me crrrrazy!"

The actor loved the challenge of playing "somebody in desperate need of therapy, but who also is highly functioning ." He's just your average well-intentioned, over-educated, somewhat self-absorbed guy trying to make sense of his life and find his way -- someone audiences can relate to.

Rudavsky is still in therapy himself, and still pursuing "Shrink Stories" (there's even a contest underway, at the film's website, treatmentmovie.com), along with some other "personal" fictional endeavors. And he's looking forward to the Q&A on opening night at the Kendall Square Cinema, where he hopes to spot some former classmates -- from Newton South and maybe even Solomon Schechter Day School -- in the audience.