Bernie
2023 · 16m · USA
Directed by Caroline Collins
Genres: comedy, dark comedy
Tones: darkly comic, humorous, tender
A talented but unrecognized artist who has lost everything — including the will to live — calls his successful doctor brother for help. The two bicker their way through the wreckage of Bernie's apartment while a deeper, unspoken love resurfaces.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Most people would've made this a tragedy or a pity piece—instead Collins builds a two-hander that lets slapstick and suicidal ideation occupy the same frame without flinching, and somehow that refusal to choose a lane is exactly what makes it work.
The film inherits a formal lineage from Koreeda and Reichardt in its commitment to the unsaid, but executes a distinctly comedic register—that tonal precision, the editing's willingness to let pauses breathe alongside pratfalls, positions it within a careful tradition of emotional restraint.
The entire short hinges on Collins' choice to treat the brothers' bickering not as relief from the darkness but as its equal—that decision to cut between a joke about the apartment's wreckage and a glance that reveals everything underneath lifts what could be earnest indie melodrama into something that actually breathes.
Reviews
How to Ruin Your Life (And Annoy Your Brother)