Review: The Girls Were Doing Nothing

17th November 2016

[EDIT – The version of the film we saw was a work in progress cut. The final sound mix, color grading and editing touches need to be completed.]

Marta and Jake are a married couple in their late 30’s. Working in senior professional positions, they are very wealthy: living together in a luxurious cosmopolitan home while spending much of their free time eating at expensive restaurants and exercising at private gyms. Their idealistic lifestyle is a grandiose means of concealing and deflecting the strains of their spousal dynamic. For Jake and Marta, communication has become an obligation; intimacy has become a rarity; and love itself has become a cliché. All of that is about to change when Andrea, their attractive and affable neighbour, asks Jake and Marta for a favour while she goes on holiday.

Exquisitely shot and measured in both tone and pace, The Girls Were Doing Nothing shouldn’t be dismissed as an exercise in style-porn. The opulence in which the lead characters adorn themselves belies the void within their relationship and the desire for meaningful interaction, closeness and connection, the driving force of the narrative. Told from Marta’s perspective we see the malignancy of familiarity and its effect on her life, while both she and Jake remain silent throughout, it’s their actions that do the talking.

An otherworldliness radiates from both Katie Alexander Thom (Marta) and Malcom Jeffries’ (Jake) performances as their carapaces armour them, keeping up appearances, only for the facade to slip in private. Picture 50 Shades if it had an actual message. The photography, reminiscent of David Fincher’s Gone Girl offers an evolution of harshness slowly bleeding into warmth, which is symbolic of Marta and Jake’s journey.

The first part in a Dekel Berenson’s The Eros Trilogy, I look forward to Borderlines and The Surface of All Things as they continue the themes and stylistic vision delivered here.

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