Standby

The idea of comprimated time for a touching, energetic story is far to be original. But it is working and this is the most important thing. Two bobbies in a police car. Simple gestures, sparkles of dialogue. Days, weeks, events. Caffes and cake and tears and hug. The routtine. Seductive for out words motifs. A lovely short film, wise hommage to life, example of precise cinematography and high art of storytelling.

This takes quite an amiable look at brief snippets from days in the lives of police officers "Gary" (Andrew Paul) and new rookie "Jenny" (Alexa Morden). From their initial meeting as she struggles to lug a large dog into the back of their patrol car through to him rather paternally dropping her off for a date, we follow their developing relationship. It's clear that for him, this job is a vocation in which he is happy - well, content at any rate. She clearly has ambition, though, and soon we meet the next in his conveyor line. It's peppered by a few scenes with some of the reprobates that they pick up in the line of, and with some (out of vision) appreciation of some of the work these jobbing coppers have to do, day in day out, in all weathers. It's quickly cut together and shows something of just how teamwork, well, works! Two sugars in your tea each time might just get you dentures, though, pal!

Occurring entirely within a police car, this is a comedic tale of two beat bobbies and their relationship. The relationship is delivered in scenes of only 3-10 seconds in the most part, and they are edited together in a way that is tight but still effective. On the face of it the story and the film is quite a simple one, but the stress on the delivery is significant. The pressure to make every scene work and do so in such a short time – and for each scene to be part of a whole. It is impressive then that this pulls it off so well.

The film has a great snap to it, mixing moments of humor, annoyance, and emotion, all of which show a changing relationship between the two, but doesn't spend a lot of time doing any one thing. Some of the individual scenes maybe are not as strong as others, but at a few seconds each, it really doesn't matter. Performances are all on- point, and it is a nice touch that the male actor was a mainstay in the ITV show The Bill for so many years. Small, quick, but effective, well worth a look.