Short Film Review #51


The Young Vic continue their always-exciting set of short films that accompany and act as responses to their main house programming with Mayday, inspired by Happy Days from earlier in the year and starring its extraordinary lead Juliet Stevenson. Here she plays May, a women left paralysed after an accident and when freak weather occurrences leave her trapped in her bed, the Beckettian waiting begins. Written by Nancy Harris and also starring Tanya Moodie and David Beames in supporting roles, it's a clever take on the familiar story and very much plays into notions of metropolitan loneliness.



Dating from 1999, this features a rather fresh-faced Cillian Murphy and Conor Morrissey’s film utilises him rather brilliantly as the son of the Grim Reaper who is having difficulties following in the footsteps of the family business.



A short that doubled as a music video for The Script, Charles Mehling directs 15 minutes of dullness that not even the mighty quiff and perky nipples of Luke Treadaway can save. A tiresome Irish couple struggle with their emigration to New York, a story apparently inspired by O Henry’s story story The Gift of the Magi, but lacking any real point of interest.



Written by Saad Saeed as part of a group of Iraqi writers tasked with telling stories of life during the war, a TV star-heavy cast directed by George Larkin give us this fable-like tale which has a fascinating bent to it, if one that could do with a little more room to breathe. The full clip of Sami’s Cock can be seen here

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