Stutterer

Wow forget long blockbuster movies but the new thing should be watching Oscar nominated or winner short films. This one was so good. Bravo.

A man who loves words but can't speak them has to finally meet his on-line girlfriend.

That's a set-up for a full length rom-com, yet it takes care of business in just 12 minutes (as I wish most modern rom-coms would). It's a fine example of story-telling with maximum economy. This is what the best of Short Films do and "Stutterer" is one of the best, among this year's Oscar nominees at least (I'd put it a close second to "Day One").

Like a haiku or a sonnet, the short film can serve to distill a subject to it's essence. "Stutterer" is a fine example of the form. Bravo!

This film is about a young man who stutters. His stutter is not a minor stutter but debilitating. He often has difficulty even talking out loud to others and has even pretended to be deaf in order to prevent him having to talk out loud. However, he's had an online relationship with a girl for many months and when she tells him that she's coming to London and wants to see him, he's in a panic. What is he to do? She has no idea that he's a stutterer and he's very apprehensive to writer her back at all. What is he to do?

As a father of a deaf daughter, I found it fascinating watching the main character practicing British Sign Language--a system that is surprisingly very little like American Sign Language. It appeared to be done well...which I appreciate. My biggest reason for not being so enthusiastic about this film isn't because the short is poorly made--it's quite good. But I saw another short this year that was very, very similar except that instead of struggling with stuttering, the main character struggled with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder when going out on a blind date.

UPDATE: It really surprised me but this film took the Oscar.

If Everything Will Be Okay is this year's most favorable Oscar-nominated live action short, then Stutterer is a close runner-up with its light-hearted, albeit slightly tragic, narrative about a man who's thoughts in his head are crystal-clear but the words out of his mouth are shaky and lack confidence. The short revolves around a lonely typographer named Greenwood (Matthew Needham), who has struggled with enunciation and basic communication all his life due to his stammer, to the point where it's easier to use sign language than to even try to muster up the strength to communicate - let alone have the other party be patient enough to hear him out. He makes the street-corner preacher in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing sound like a public speaker.

Greenwood has spent most of his days on Facebook, communicating with a woman he's been in an online relationship with for six months. He desperately wants to meet her, but knows she'll be disappointed. In his head, his words flow perfectly, with a buttery consistency and melodic depth that makes his presence assertive. Despite this, it takes Greenwood a good forty-five seconds to get eight words out and we can see the mental hopscotch and exhaustion it takes just to get those eight words out of his mouth.

Benjamin Cleary doesn't position Stutterer in a way that makes us sob or even tear up at Greenwood's situation, largely because he creates a character and not a vessel that demands manipulative sympathy. He wants us to see Greenwood as a person, with deep thoughts and ideas, rather than an empty soul manufactured so we can have someone to look down upon and feel sorry for. It's also arguably the most tonally consistent short film of the lot, largely because of its brevity and its very simplistic structure and makeup (very direct, straight-shot sequences with many close-ups and bust shots making for a very serviceable look).

With that, Stutterer becomes a beautiful little romance, and actually has the weight and potential to turn into a charming, full-length feature similar to Shawn Christensen's Oscar-winning short Curfew and its eventually evolution into the terrific film Before I Disappear in 2013.

From thequickflickcritic.blogspot.com/

The task of any Short Film is to seize the viewer's attention in literally a matter of seconds, at once inspiring and sustaining an emotional connection with the story and it's characters. It is a most formidable undertaking indeed. I'm here to declare that Writer/Director Benjamin Cleary's 2015 British production "Stutterer" succeeds in not only meeting, but surpassing, this genuinely daunting mandate.

In an instant I felt the helpless frustration that Greenwood projects as he struggles with all of his might to convert the ever flowing thoughts in his head to bear upon his tongue and lips. But he can't. I found it consistently gripping and, moreover, painful to behold this roundly riveting performance which Matthew Needham (The BBC's "Casualty") gifts to us in the title role of "Stutterer".

A couple of quibbles if you'll allow. I found it a bit difficult to understand how an adult man with at least one apparently caring parent could not have received at least a measure of effective therapy for his severe affliction at some point in his life. And as the movie drew to conclusion I had already anticipated how it was likely going to end, my hunch proving accurate.

Still, these amount to but minor distractions in an otherwise richly satisfying and touching story, one that is ultimately of a lonely soul's search for his kindred sweet spirit.

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