A90
2022 · 18m · UK
Directed by Olivia J. Middleton
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
Annette, a disenfranchised worker at a roadside café in Scotland, experiences an intense and wordless romantic collision with a stranger named Morgan who passes through. Fated by circumstance never to fully realize their connection, the two share a fleeting, devastating moment of recognition.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Middleton's mastery of unspoken desire — situating a queer roadside romance in the tradition of Wong Kar-wai's temporal melancholy — marks A90 as precisely the kind of formally disciplined debut that warrants preservation in any serious short film vault.
Eighteen minutes of wordless longing in a Scottish roadside café — that's Chungking Express cosplay, and Chungking Express was 102 minutes for a reason. Pretty, but I suspect mostly mood.
A near-wordless 18-minute roadside-café romance leaning entirely on composition and performer chemistry is a high-wire act — Middleton's choosing cinematic longing over plot beats requires Marli Siu and Sinead Macinnes to do almost everything visually. Chungking Express comp is ambitious; I'm curious whether the gaze holds.
Reviews
A subtle and nuanced short, A90 allows its audience to feel the emotions shared between its central couple through their chemistry and tension, rather than through their dialogue or actions.
Festivals
- Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2022
- Glasgow Shorts 2023