This is an odd little short, more about mood/notion than tangible story. It’s also the shortest one I’ve watched so far, with the credits starting right around the six-and-a-half-minute mark. So yeah, this review may very well be longer than the short itself.
Two men walk into the woods to dig a hole. In between their work, they discuss their lives.
As I said, not much in the way of a story here. Certain questions are left ambiguous, and certain surprises pop up late in the game. For the most part, though, this is just a little piece between these two characters, with the question of the hole they’re digging widening amid their gentle banter. Joel Fry and Cary Crankson (the other actor in this short) both get a story credit alongside the writer/director. Not sure if that means they were actually writing it together or if it means a fair amount of the dialogue is improvised.
But for all that there’s not a lot here, I still found myself liking it. It put me in the mind of Shakespearian grave diggers, or maybe Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Watching them dig and talk, there’s some softly pleasant humor as they misunderstand each other, and they hint a little at the philosophical of the mundane. Not I think this approaches the feat of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, obviously, but that’s the vibe I got.
Joel Fry plays Griffin. From the banter, we know more facts about him than we do about the other digger, Michaels. Griffin’s been saying for years that he’s going to quit smoking, he’s a relatively new dad, and his wife makes him put piccalilli on his sandwiches. These small details give us a bit of a snapshot of this man, while the tone and tenor of Fry’s performance gives some texture to those details.
Griffin is dwelling heavily on how being a dad changes things for him, but he balks when Michaels asks him about fatherhood. “Well, when you say ‘fatherhood,’ it makes it sound like I’ve been doing it for ages,” he counters. “It’s only been six months.” He’s not able to engage with the question until Michaels amends it to “dadness.”
Accent Watch
London.
Recommend?
In General – Maybe. I like the feel of it.
Joel Fry – Maybe. It’s not a must, but I enjoy what he does here.
Warnings
Thematic elements.
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