Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘My Life With the Walter Boys’ follows Jackie Howard, who finds herself in the middle of the Walter family storm when she moves in with them. The Walters already have about twelve people living in the house when she joins them and realizes how overwhelming it can get. However, she has no choice but to move there and get a taste of life in rural Colorado in the small town of Silver Falls. It’s not New York, but it’s quaint, and instead of skyscrapers, it has sky! Once Jackie starts to explore the town, she grows to love it. However, the fans of the show would be disappointed to hear that it’s not a real place.
Silver Falls and The Lark Cafe are Fictional Places
Silver Falls in ‘My Life With the Walter Boys’ is a fictional town, most probably based on the waterfall of the same name near Pagosa Springs. However, the real-life waterfall doesn’t make an appearance in the show, so the same name for the fictional town in the Netflix series could be a coincidence.
In the show, Silver Falls is supposed to be somewhere in Colorado. However, in real life, the Netflix series didn’t film anywhere near Colorado. The filming for the show took place mostly in Alberta, Canada, with Calgary as one of the main locations. Because a lot of the story takes place in the outdoors with the ranch in constant view and the characters horse riding in almost every episode, the creators of the show wanted to find someplace that would have the vibe of “the Wild West.” It was also necessary to show the stark difference in Jackie’s surroundings as she moved from the crowded environs of New York to the quiet of Silver Falls. For this, the show needed a location that could balance the beauty of the place along with its isolation.
Apart from the Walter family ranch and the high school that Jackie and the other Walter children attend, the Lark Cafe is another primary location in the show. This is where the eldest Walter child, Will, works with his fiancee, Hayley. The cafe is a regular presence in the show and appears to be quite a cozy place where people can hang out and have a good time.
The cafe, much like the town, is also a fictional location. It is a plot device to explore the dynamic between Will and Hayley and bring out the complexity of their relationship. The exterior of the cafe was most probably filmed in Calgary or another location in Alberta, while the interior could have been filmed in a set, considering that the show’s creators would have wanted a specific look for it.
While Silver Falls and the Lark Cafe are made up to serve the purpose of the story, they are filmed around real-life locations to give the audience a complete sense of what the places are supposed to be like for Jackie and the Walter family, as well as the importance they hold for them. Despite the fictional nature of the places, they have been presented as realistically as possible to help viewers connect with the characters, their surroundings, and, hence, their emotions.
