f2point8 (2002)

Director:

Paul Hills

Writer:

Carole Hayman (writer)

Genre:

Short

Plot:

Chloe meets a photographer at a party and is invited to participate in a photo shoot. |

Cast

Jodie Jameson	...	Chloe (as Jody Jameson)
Wil Johnson	...	Rob
Marc Warren	...	James
Tracie Bennett	...	Kika
Cassie French	...	Party Model
Deborah Hegan	...	Photo Model
Elissa Canfield	...	Photo Model

Runtime:

UK:20 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Company:

Amaranth Film Partners

Interesting if not totally successful

Chloe goes along with her photographer boyfriend to yet another exhibition/party that she feels out of place at. While trying to kill time until she can leave and stop feeling out of step with the arty socialites she meets Rob, a photographer who is taken by her and asks her to allow him to shoot her for his new installation. Whenever James is called to work late and can't meet her, she decides to visit Rob and then agrees to take part in his shoot – discovering a freedom within herself that she hadn't realised that she had before.

With an interesting title to intrigue me, I decided to give this short film a try and I was glad I did even if it didn't work that well and I was left none the wiser about the meaning of the title. The plot is about Chloe making a sexual discovery about herself and living within that for the first time since she became curious about sex. It sounds interesting and in some ways the delivery of the material means it is, but in others I felt unsatisfied (no pun intended) because I didn't learn as much about the characters as I would have liked. The occasional voice-over from Chloe's thoughts gave some background but mainly the interest came from watching someone succeed in bringing out the repressed sexuality that had always been within her. The manner this is done is fun and convincing but it did suffer because I didn't think enough had been done to establish Chloe as a person in need of liberation or not.

The actors do well regardless; the actress playing Chloe is natural and interesting. She makes the film work while the others are not quite as convincing. Johnson's Rob is a bit clunky but he works well enough and I think it may have been the fact that he is tainted for the audience by Chloe's perception rather than any failing by him as an actor. The increasingly famous Warren pops up but he has only a minor role although he does well to tell the audience of how he is the guiding partner and hence an influence on her repressed sexuality – he does this with little screen time.

Overall this is an interesting film that works as a short but still could have done more to be more successful. Worth seeing for what it does do, it may also annoy some viewers by lacking in key areas and never quite getting about the "interesting" level.