There's no story here, no characters; no technical film-making craft to speak of. I admit to a bit of confusion as to how a video like this makes it onto a website that compiles information on film or TV projects, and their cast and crew, while differentiating these from mundane vlogs and "YouTuber" content.
But that's just context for me to say: Okay, I enjoyed this.
Zoë Bell's "challenge" is not so much a short film as it is a game among friends, captured on video and edited very simply into a single piece for mass consumption. It's an exercise in film-making during a time when media production was shut down - along with, well, most things - amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the first person perspective, it feels a bit awkward in the same way as, say, an actor in a play momentarily holding our gaze in the audience; so it goes with most socially-distanced content of the past year. But it's still a small delight to see the concept play out, particularly with some of the more unexpected contributions that deviate from the others.
That it feels a bit longer than it needed to be is counterbalanced by the list of names participating. Everyone involved obviously had fun doing this, and it's hard not to share vicariously in that feeling.
Yes, it's silly, and won't be for everyone; I'm as surprised as anyone that I enjoyed watching. Yet any further long-winded critique, as one would apply to a more conventional feature, is 100% superfluous nonsense: This is a tiny peek into how Bell and her friends passed time during the pandemic, and all we have to do is decide how much we want to partake.
Worth five minutes of your time? Sure, why not.
