Nick Reiner, the son of famous filmmaker Rob Reiner, was recently arrested after a reported shocking family murder. On that most tragic day, his 28 year-old sister Romy discovered their parents dead in their home. The signs indicated that they were the victims of a knife attack. While the tragedy has shocked and shaken the film community, it is important to examine the questions that led to Nick’s way of life.
Nick Reiner teamed up with his father to write a drama that explores some profoundly intimate territory. The story followed a young Hollywood son through the perils of addiction and the young man’s recovery journey. Nick admitted the film was “not my life.” Shan took Hu’s cues, but as he recently revealed in an interview, he was surprised that the character’s journey overlapped with his own. As Rob Reiner directed the film, he reflected on how this creative endeavor allowed him to better understand what his son had endured.
In the aftermath of this horrible act, Nick Reiner faced unimaginable pain. He experienced weeks of homelessness, cycling through Texas, Maine, and New Jersey. He described his time on the streets as precarious, stating, “When I was out there, I could’ve died. It’s all luck. You roll the dice and you hope you make it.” This harrowing experience has certainly influenced his understanding of living and creating art.
Nonetheless, Nick plunged into a new writing endeavor. You wouldn’t know it by looking at his filmography, because he hasn’t completed a single picture since forming the partnership with Rob. Their experiences, fears, inspirations and hopes formed the basis of their creative work, a rich medley of drama and comedy. Rob Reiner emphasized the importance of their shared journey: “What we tried to do is take the essence of our experience and what we all went through and make a theatrical drama about it, comedy too.”
The ripple effect of this tragedy reaches far past Nick. Rob Reiner has a 32-year-old son and a 26-year-old daughter. He spoke in very real terms about the difficulty of shepherding young adults through the entertainment industry. He stated, “Should I lean into it? Should I back away from it? They’re confused. I said, once they find their own path, it won’t matter.” A dedicated parent, Rob saw early on that during times of unrest, he needed to be intentional about keeping his kids safe—both physically and emotionally.
Here’s what Rob had to say about the filming experience. It motivated him to examine his experiences and ultimately provide more thoughtfulness to Nick’s journey. It made me need to visualize more concretely and to really put myself in place to see what Nick had been through and I believe it challenged him to see things that I had lived throughout this process. It certainly drew us together as a community,” he said.