Milton Turtletaub lives alone and is shocked one day to find his new neighbour is a stunning Brazilian-born model who is in the UK to do commercials in the hope of making the leap into "proper" acting. He is tongue-tied at first but only gets worse as she hands him notice from the mail that his online dating service has cut him off due to a long period with zero matches. Despite being late for work, he contacts the service call centre to try and resolve the issue and hopefully find love just around the corner.
This short film probably has a good idea or concept somewhere but I couldn't see it. The premise is the guy spends the day on hold, his name is constantly mispronounced as he attempts to reach a supervisor and at the same time as online love slips further away, he starts to fantasize about the model next door – but surely this can be more than just an impossible fantasy? What we get for content is mixed. On one hand it is a man on hold while comedy accents mock him one way or another. In between we have sexual soft shots of the model loving up to him and at the end the two come together. None of it really works though. The on hold comedy gave me the odd chuckle but the joke wears thin quickly, while the fantasy material seemed too obvious and dull. The conclusion is a punch line that falls flat and it leaves almost nothing at the end.
The performances are poor. Hoey pushes his character too far without the material to back him up and he is asked to do too much; this leaves him looking bad but to me it was the material, not him. Patricio does what is asked of her but unfortunately beyond her looks she is very unnatural and wooden here – she needed to have a natural presence on the screen to draw you in, but she is forced and never feels comfortable, which hurts the fantasy aspect. Perhaps to make them both look better, Noy has to stand stiffly for a few seconds at the end. The various call centre voices have decent delivery but deserved better material.
Maybe for some this will work but for me it was just a big misfire that didn't have much about it to recommend.
This short film probably has a good idea or concept somewhere but I couldn't see it. The premise is the guy spends the day on hold, his name is constantly mispronounced as he attempts to reach a supervisor and at the same time as online love slips further away, he starts to fantasize about the model next door – but surely this can be more than just an impossible fantasy? What we get for content is mixed. On one hand it is a man on hold while comedy accents mock him one way or another. In between we have sexual soft shots of the model loving up to him and at the end the two come together. None of it really works though. The on hold comedy gave me the odd chuckle but the joke wears thin quickly, while the fantasy material seemed too obvious and dull. The conclusion is a punch line that falls flat and it leaves almost nothing at the end.
The performances are poor. Hoey pushes his character too far without the material to back him up and he is asked to do too much; this leaves him looking bad but to me it was the material, not him. Patricio does what is asked of her but unfortunately beyond her looks she is very unnatural and wooden here – she needed to have a natural presence on the screen to draw you in, but she is forced and never feels comfortable, which hurts the fantasy aspect. Perhaps to make them both look better, Noy has to stand stiffly for a few seconds at the end. The various call centre voices have decent delivery but deserved better material.
Maybe for some this will work but for me it was just a big misfire that didn't have much about it to recommend.
