By Josh Horwood.
Written and directed by Pablo D’Stair, 54mins, on Vimeo
Hully Gully is adapted from D’Stair’s short film of the same name. When writer Daphne gets a job at a bookshop, she leaves her boyfriend Reggie to mope around. I really wanted to like this; Hully Gully is a great name for a film. Unfortunately, that’s the only positive I can find. The story is circular and pointless. D’Stair makes the decision to use one camera position and one long take for each scene. This would work if his performances were even remotely charismatic or interesting. They are neither. Reggie’s cockney accent makes Dick van Dyke seem like a genuine Pearly King. Daphne is whiny and petulant. Both characters are forever smoking, often talking with cigarettes in their mouth, which exacerbates the problem of the sound quality. This is poor, it seems like the camera’s internal microphone was used. Problems are heightened by the ever presence of music, which makes the sound mix even more murky. Director of Photography Paul VanBrocklin must have skipped the classes in which they teach you how to keep things in focus. The image looks like it was cropped in post-production and the film isn’t actually edited, owing D’Stair’s incomprehensible decision to use long takes. It’s a rambling, self-indulgent “comedy” that didn’t make me laugh once. What a shame.
