Review: Shot Of Tea Shorts

20th March 2019

Murder Suicide: An upbeat buddy comedy

The beats are odd, the characters a little flat, but the quirky silliness of this film makes you smirk and grin. A woman kills her ass hole boyfriend because he let her dog run loose – she concocts a poisonous beer knowing he’ll ask her for the rest of her own drink, and therefore orchestrates his own demise through his rude predictability.

A mysterious hotline plays a third character which provides the smirks and funniness of the story. The absurd deus ex machina allows the woman to walk away from her crime with little to no guilt, thanks to a quick google search of non extradition countries. The hotline gains a new customer, and she and her dog both get lost.

Safe Bet

This short is charming in a very vulnerable way – the playful sadness of dating and the risky game of romantic gambling give one woman a really bad night. The inversion of the tropes are legitimately cool. The nice guy at the beginning is still nice, but more going for him than we thought, the coy pixie girl is lonely and desperate, and the ass hole is nothing more than that because we all know how they are.

In the end, the only safe bet is the one you make on yourself. As this woman makes not one but two mistakes in one night, turning away a great date to go sleep with a loser, then coming crawling back to another bad surprise, it makes you realise how your first impressions can be criminally unfair and sometimes the safest bets have the lowest reward – you gotta risk it to get the biscuit.

Craning

This movie has been in development for a while, and has since been recognised for the effort. With good reason – the short is emotional, neatly done and a great watch. Two people on an uncomfortable date are left wondering whether a meaningful connection is even possible. It takes some honest confessions and a few twists to get the two from A to B – awkward banter to a real place of empathy.

The two actors together don’t seem to have much chemistry, but their performances are both still good. The camerawork is sophisticated, and moves from static and stationary to carefree and fluid. It’s linked well with the dialogue and the story, and the performance at the end really brings it home. I take my hat off to this film, I was invested and surprised, and left feeling a little raw, in the best possible way.

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