Necessity is the mother of invention. Old sayings, clichés but more often than not they are truisms. With Polar made on a round of drinks in the pub budget the makers have made a film that works on virtually no financial input. Bearing this in mind do you make a gorefests, an alien or monster film, or anything that involves screen effects. No if you got an sense you make it about people and about everyday problems, so everything in the story is the people and what you see on the screen that has been filmed and you have got a chance.
Film maker and writer, Dominic Jackson, has done just that. Mental health and substance abuse, albeit recreational abuse and not debilitating mental illness. Which is the clever part, whereas many film-makers go showy, full of demonstrative acting, people 'losing the plot', Polar goes softly, softly. The type of anxiety and self-doubt that is surely an illness of the individual but not enough to stop them from functioning in society, in fact how many of us have these self-doubts, the feckless procrastination, the lack of true drive, that stop us getting that job, creating whatever it is we feel we need to create? True we do not all go binging on booze (although that is very common in the UK for many people) and recreational drugs but we all have that nagging idiot sat on our shoulder stopping us from doing so much.
This is the huge strength of Polar, the actor playing Robin, Drew Horner, plays his role almost pitch perfectly. Robin is likable, but he is a bit of a dick, we've all known these people or have even been them, he is fun, but don't rely on him, he is not thick but does the most stupid things, and he can be embarrassing in front of friends and family just when you do not want him to be, but when he is 'on' you definitely want him around. Just be careful.
Drew is Robin. He does not overplay his character and become 'actorly', relying on tricks but just plays it straight down the barrel, consequently he is very believable.
Likewise the res of the cast like, Rotimi Pearce, as best friend Steve is very believable. His character, who is also a bit wild but has settled down, somewhere in their past their paths diverged and Steve's appears to have lead to a better place. The chemistry between Horner and Pearce is all there to be seen. Even more surprisingly, and heartening to me, is the supporting cast. Often low-budget films have people learning their trade, maybe not on their best form at the early stages of their career, but everyone in Polar seems to have been in tip-top form, maybe we will see more of them. On this showing they deserve to be moving up the greasy pole and none more so than aforementioned Horner and Pearce who I strongly believe kept me watching more than some less talented actors would have.
The comedic aspects of the story are natural and not shoe-horned in with Robin's attempts to chat-up supermarket worker Daisy, cute as a button Grace Parry, believable and naffly funny. True to character and natural they are gigglesome and palm-to-forehead slapping, rather than making you guffaw out loud. In fact Robin's failures throughout the film were sad and realistically funny and the old trope of him missing out on the obvious choice of lady-friend, although seen before is played and handled much better than most films with millions more in budget.
The cinematography is fantastic, considering, once again, no money, a big shaky at times with some wobbles here and there plus some lovely lens flare but this sort of lends to the authenticity which adds to your experience rather than subtract from it.
Although I seem rather gushing in my opinion of Polar a film of this budget is never going to be without a few bumps in the road. The story is very simple so at times can be frustrating, the viewer will know what they want for Robin soon into the running time, and with the filming seemingly spread over a longish period of time some parts seem a tad disjointed and do not quite create a smoth narrative, in particularly near the end what was happening did confuse me.
Having said this, for what is basically a zero-budget film any criticism seems a bit petty and churlish, but whatever Polar's flaws are they are overshadowed by what is good about the movie.
The question is would the makers and actors create a better, more compelling film, with a bigger budget and larger crew? It is an intriguing question, they would probably say yes and who can blame them? But we have all seen the low-budget film remade and they have not always been good.
In the meantime if you want to know what you can make with no-budget, limited time and talent available to you look no further than Polar. It can be done.
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