By Maahin Akhlaque.

Director Anthony Wilcox bases his first feature length film, Hello Carter, on the main character from his short film of the same name, but takes Carter on a different journey. Set over the course of just over a day, Carter (Charlie Cox) is single, unemployed and homeless. In an attempt to get him to get his life back on track, his brother (Christian Cooke) suggests he gets back in touch with his ex-girlfriend, who dumped him eleven months earlier. And so, he sets out on a quest to try and get her new number.

The idea behind the character of Carter is quite good, and relevant to the times we live in – he’s recently been made redundant, and been struggling to find another job, because he can’t find what makes him stand out from all the other applicants. The problem is though, that in making the lead character the ‘everyman’, Carter ends up being quite boring, despite making some strange choices. He’s perfectly likeable, but not interesting enough, and not likely to generate sympathy. There seems to be a lot more to the other characters, particularly Jenny (Jodie Whittaker) and Aaron, Carter’s ex’s brother (Paul Schneider), which could have added to the film had they been explored more, though it would take the film off topic significantly.

I don’t like having to write negative reviews of small British indies, particularly someone’s debut feature, and one that clearly has had a lot of effort put into it. It very well may speak to some audiences a lot more than it did to me, and I did find myself wanting to know what was going to happen, which makes me think Anthony Wilcox knows what he’s doing. He managed to get a decent cast together, and I found some moments enjoyable, even chuckled a couple of times, but overall the Hello Carter is just a bit bland.

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