Intimations

This short film seemed far longer than it was. Sterling Fitzgerald's performance is one note. She looks tense and strained the entire movie. The boy playing her student who flirts with disaster by giving her a peck on the cheek reminded me somewhat of Harold in the wonderful "Harold and Maude". However Matthew Christopher possesses none of the charm and yet at the same time teen age suffering that Bud Cort so easily showed us. The acting I did care for came from the husband played by Matt Caruso, who seemed far more natural and actually had more than one note when it came to acting. The combination of a tedious and moody piece scored with moody music makes this short seem very long. It is a slice of life, yet I feel no desire to learn what happens to Abbey when she driving away from her home or her marriage at the end of the film. I just don't care about her or her student. We never know why this young man is suffering or if he is a spoiled brat. If he is a brat, why? There is no hint as to why he is as he is. One feels no connection with Abby for her plight which I am never sure what it is? A husband who may be cheating or a student she might have sexual feelings for? It is hard to read anything on this actress's face, except a tense strained look the entire time as she continually wipes a strand, the same strand of hair from her face in a tense strained gesture. I can never tell just how she feels about the cheating husband or the boy she might feel an attraction to. This may be a case of actors who just don't understand layers. Who play the obvious outside of the characters and the end of the story before it even ends, with no idea how to think loud thoughts that register on film and show what they are feeling on their faces, body language or gestures. They may not understand that just because the character doesn't have the lines they are thinking and not speaking, that doesn't mean the character isn't thinking and feeling beyond what the words are. How many times in life, do we say one thing, think another thing and feel even something else all at the same time. These actors, except for the actor playing the husband seem to play only the end results of this story which will be unhappy and outside clichés of how tense and unhappy people look from the outside, with not much going on inside and that is evident with every close up or word spoken by them. This makes me wonder what the director and producer were thinking who cast them, didn't they tape the auditions and review them? It wouldn't be bad if this was a student film and under grad, but it isn't and so one expects better. One doesn't expect to see a short film and feel like I can't wait for this to end. The idea of the unhappy teacher and a younger man, her student and a possible attraction is not a new idea and has been done many times. In this instance one would want at least the acting to pull you into this story so one cares what happens to these characters. All I felt was a vagueness and one note of playing tense misery from Abbey and a sour brat from the student. Surely there was more to why these people behaved as they did, so that we might care and wonder as to what their outcome might be. Other wise why bother to keep watching?