I'm not really sure where to start with this, but I'll for sure be spoiling it. The mostly dialogue free short film sees an older man follow a young mother and her child home. When he sees the child has gone to bed, he creeps into the house, checking that the mother is naked in the bath before he then sneaks into the girl's room and embraces her as she sleeps. He then mixes up a fine white powder and sniffs it up his nose off her bedroom mirror, before then getting out of her window in a drug-induced frenzy. If that sounds weirdly awful as an idea then you should consider that the man is none other than Alan Rickman and the young mother Jodie Whittaker – two people whom it should be said it is good to see still giving their time to British short films; so it suggest there is something smart or interesting about the film that must have drawn them to it.
The twist is that, the man is a fairy (in the winged, tooth-collecting meaning), and we are meant to be caught off guard by this fantastical twist at the end – which you will be, because it comes out of nowhere. Problem is, up till that point the film has delivered some very odd feelings and images and the idea that the man is a fairy really doesn't address the obvious question of why the film felt the need to play quite so dark throughout, pushing emotive buttons all the way? Is there commentary here? No. Is there a link? Not really – it could be argued that the film reinvents the idea of the fairy as being more sinister and needy than kind and female, but if it is trying to do that it doesn't do it well. It bothered me that it so much went for the shock value of showing us things that all but the most innocent of viewer will immediately jump to obvious conclusions about – the child abuse aspect, the abduction aspect, the obvious drug use and so on – why push all these buttons just to have no reason or payoff for them?
It doesn't help that the payoff in the film is the rather absurd sight of a grown man flapping away on tiny wings that don't look connected to him at all; all it made me think of was that the last time I saw Rickman fly through the air it was in a much better film than this (Die Hard - albeit not so good an end for his character). I have no idea what attracted him to this project. Was more promised that wasn't delivered on the screen in the end? He seems bored throughout and has nothing to work with apart from the obvious. Whittaker likewise – with a lot of big roles under her belt, this short film seems such an odd and random thing to put her name and time to.
I guess some will love it for the twist and the fact that it puts a dark spin on the mythology of fairies, however for me it put too dark a spin on the whole thing – pushing buttons, playing on fears, showing overly familiar scenes, all on the way to a silly image of Rickman with tiny black wings which really makes it seem silly and therefore makes all the very dark suggestive material seem like just audience baiting. It is a mess and it doesn't deserve the cast it got not the attention that they brought to it.
The twist is that, the man is a fairy (in the winged, tooth-collecting meaning), and we are meant to be caught off guard by this fantastical twist at the end – which you will be, because it comes out of nowhere. Problem is, up till that point the film has delivered some very odd feelings and images and the idea that the man is a fairy really doesn't address the obvious question of why the film felt the need to play quite so dark throughout, pushing emotive buttons all the way? Is there commentary here? No. Is there a link? Not really – it could be argued that the film reinvents the idea of the fairy as being more sinister and needy than kind and female, but if it is trying to do that it doesn't do it well. It bothered me that it so much went for the shock value of showing us things that all but the most innocent of viewer will immediately jump to obvious conclusions about – the child abuse aspect, the abduction aspect, the obvious drug use and so on – why push all these buttons just to have no reason or payoff for them?
It doesn't help that the payoff in the film is the rather absurd sight of a grown man flapping away on tiny wings that don't look connected to him at all; all it made me think of was that the last time I saw Rickman fly through the air it was in a much better film than this (Die Hard - albeit not so good an end for his character). I have no idea what attracted him to this project. Was more promised that wasn't delivered on the screen in the end? He seems bored throughout and has nothing to work with apart from the obvious. Whittaker likewise – with a lot of big roles under her belt, this short film seems such an odd and random thing to put her name and time to.
I guess some will love it for the twist and the fact that it puts a dark spin on the mythology of fairies, however for me it put too dark a spin on the whole thing – pushing buttons, playing on fears, showing overly familiar scenes, all on the way to a silly image of Rickman with tiny black wings which really makes it seem silly and therefore makes all the very dark suggestive material seem like just audience baiting. It is a mess and it doesn't deserve the cast it got not the attention that they brought to it.