An intermittent feature on here over the last few months has been my discovery of the world of short films (you can read my other collections of reviews by clicking on the tag 'film' below) and it has been amazing how many links have been sent to me since I started, recommending this film and the other. It may take me a little while to get round to them all, but do keep the suggestions coming in.
Following on from the huge success that was her production
of A Doll’s House at the Young Vic this summer, Carrie Cracknell has further
explored Ibsen’s premise of a woman reaching breaking point in this short film
Nora. Using the same lead actress Hattie Morahan but locating her in a
modern-day context, Cracknell and collaborator Nick Payne depict a high-pressured
world in which Nora struggles to balance looking after two small children with
her job as an ad exec whilst her husband is away on business.
Zac Nicholson’s cinematography looks sensational in its muted colours and interesting
focus points and if Cracknell employs the windblown hair look a little too
often, she can be forgiven as Morahan’s deep pensiveness pulls it off in a
series of beautifully moody shots. As a piece of storytelling, I’m not sure it
holds quite the same power as as a modern woman, contemporary Nora has
assumedly had much more control over her life and the choices she has made than
19th century Nora ever would have done, but there are neat hints at
the way that Nora feels the entire world is against her, women as well as men.
Where Have I Been All Your Life
Where Have I Been All Your Life? from Jim Field Smith on Vimeo.
Where Have I Been All Your Life is a BBC comedy short from
2007 although it has the air of something from a more classic era of that
channel’s output. James Corden’s Liam has been hunting for his father and, via
the internet, has now found him. John and Angela – James Cosmo and Imelda
Staunton - welcome him cautiously but the fragile peace is soon shattered as
revelations and skeletons come hurtling out of the closet.
George Kay’s writing has a neatly comic edge and relishes the interplay between
its characters, especially as Angela and John argue using Liam as an
intermediary, and there’s has to be an illicit thrill in putting filthy
language into the mouth of national treasure Staunton. And Jim Field Smith’s
film has a rather delicious skip in its step, characterised well by Katy Wix’s
friend, ostensibly there for moral support but acting more as a devil on Liam’s
shoulder. Lots of fun.
A bleak look at the difficulties in trying and failing to
get over heroin addiction, Hollow is a quietly devastating little piece of film
that I really rather liked. Written by Lee Thomas and Rob Sorrenti, the latter
also directing, the story focuses on Alice and Marcus, a young couple in love
and expecting a baby but also gripped in the insidious hold of heroin
addiction. As the due date approaches and the social workers’ expressions
become increasingly concerned, the pair try to stay clean but it is far from
easy.
Beautiful music, fantastic editing and great cinematography ensure that this is
a cut above your normal short film, and it is well performed too. Morven
Christie reins in (some of) her natural brusqueness to bring a sympathetic side
to the well-meaning Alice, helpless in the face of Martin McCann’s weaker
Marcus who seems less capable of keeping clean. There’s also excellent support
from Haydn Gwynne as a grimly determined but compassionate social worker and Nonso
Anozie as a firm neighbour with good intentions.
I generally would watch anything with Juliet Stevenson in
and this short was no different. Written and directed by George Taylor and also
starring Eve Pearce, Quietus is the tale of two women, a whole bunch of cats
and a mysterious murder. It’s rather amusingly silly, after a darkish
beginning, and there’s some interest in the way that the mystery unwinds.
Stevenson is good, naturally, but it’s not an essential piece of watching I’d
have to report.
Labels: Debbie Kurup, Film, Hattie Morahan, Haydn Gwynne, Hilton McRae, Imelda Staunton, Jack Tarlton, James Corden, Juliet Stevenson, Morven Christie, Nick Payne, Paul Rattray, Susannah Wise, Tobias Menzies, Vanessa Kirby