Laurie is a writer of popular, some would say uninspired, music even if her glory days are all behind her. When a group of grunged out youngsters move in next door, Lori tries her best to be polite even when they are not. However, she makes friends with one of the guys in the group, Michael, who is quite sweet but, when he tries to move too fast Lori turns him down and things take a sudden nasty turn that disrupts her quiet life and sparks a minor neighbourhood conflict.
This short is yet another in the series of 'Short Story Cinema' from Chanticleer Films. Usually the shorts in this series all suffer from the same weaknesses a cutesy, jazzy score and bittersweet writing. In one regard this film manages to avoid this but it is still quite weak in other ways. The film starts with out main character, Laurie, just getting on with her steady, life normal like the music she writes almost. However when noisy kids move in next door the plot suddenly expects us to believe that a conflict starts and a romance fizzles to death. This is my problem with the film; the romance bit is interesting and shows that Laurie is not altogether content, but this is forgotten as the second half becomes a strange comedy caper involving robbery.
I didn't understand why anything was happening after this started and I wasn't really into the comedy the tone was just off and it wasn't actually funny or fitting. The significance of the ending was also lost on men and I wasn't sure what, if anything, I was meant to take from it. The cast try hard but mostly they aren't supported enough by the material. Reed is OK but she can't do sensitive one minute and hyper comic the next it isn't her fault, she tries but it doesn't fit. Gorshin's title character is very strange and is part of the misjudged comic tone. Gauthier is interesting but nothing is done with his character and his final shot is rather meaningless in the light of what has gone before.
Overall this is an interesting short film but one that gives way under the pressure of its own silly tone. The plot doesn't really go anywhere even if it throws up a few interesting moments but the structure was confusing to me and it just didn't deliver anything it set out to do. Interesting enough to watch once but generally not worth it.
