Angelfish
2016 · 6m · Australia
Directed by Dane McCusker
Tones: dark, provocative, tense
After a night at the bar, Patrick invites Claire home to see his angelfish; within minutes, a promising connection curdles into an exercise of entitlement.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The 'angelfish as intimacy metaphor' thing is exactly the kind of obvious symbolic machinery that usually makes me roll my eyes, but McCusker's refusal to soft-pedal the entitlement—letting the quiet predation breathe without moralizing—actually subverts the premise into something genuinely unsettling.
A precisely calibrated descent that sits in dialogue with the seduction-thriller tradition, where the formal restraint of the mise-en-scène and editing becomes the mechanism of dread; the craft knows exactly what it's inheriting and refuses easy catharsis.
That moment when Patrick pivots from charm to something else—the way the camera refuses to cut away, holding on his face as entitlement calcifies into something uglier—is the single choice that transforms a familiar scenario into something that stays with you.
Reviews
Over the course of just a few minutes, a promising connection is cut off and a fish is no longer a fish. A taut exchange that examines acceptable behavior in dating and mating rituals.
Festivals
- Aspen Shortsfest 2017, Official Selection (World Premiere)
- HollyShorts Film Festival 2017, Official Selection