"Fermented" aims to please and it does, thoroughly. I saw this film in 2011 at the NYC Quad Cinema when it was part of the LGBT block of films during the New York International Film Festival. It won the Best Gay Short award.
The agitated predicament James finds himself in speaks to anyone, gay or straight, who has ever navigated through the discovery phase of a relationship. In this short film, the conversations are so spontaneous and believable you forget the actors are working from a script and think perhaps they're being followed around by the camera crew of some reality-based program or documentary. It's nice to see actors truly having fun with the material.
Due credit must be given to the writers, Paul Kelly and Paul Brenner. Their skillful use of clever puns, rambunctious retorts and contorted reasoning lends an edge to the dialogue and holds the viewer's attention from the opening lines to the closing credits. The lead actors, Rhett Kalman and Brian Roland, offer up many of the film's best laughs with perfect comedic timing.
Although it takes up to ten minutes in this twenty-two-minute comedy to get to the main attention grabber, it's well worth the wait. With that said, the use of flashbacks are quite entertaining because, come on, what gay guy just blurts out what's bothering him right away. There are always the hints, the buildups and the eventual gut-spilling moments.
"Fermented" reminds me of a male version of "Sex and the City," where two friends meet for coffee instead of cosmos and update each other on their personal affairs and things of that nature, naturally.
