Clare
2022 · 12m · USA
Directed by Lauren Minnerath
Genres: coming-of-age, drama
Tones: dark, darkly comic, melancholic
At a Christmas high school talent show, 17-year-old Clare sneaks away to the locker room with her best friend and discovers their teacher, Mrs. Larsson, crying alone. As Clare reaches out, a disturbing past emerges — an inappropriate relationship between the student and the teacher — revealing a dark power imbalance the adult refuses to acknowledge.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Female-teacher-grooming-her-female-student is a deliberate gender flip that actually changes the texture of the conversation — that's a real choice, not just topical. Cautiously interested.
Minnerath's gender-flipped grooming narrative deliberately complicates the audience's pattern recognition — that interrogation of how we assume power lines up is a serious dramaturgical choice. Could be quietly devastating.
Eleven minutes where the perpetrator of student-teacher grooming is a female teacher rather than male is a deliberate craft decision that forces the audience into subtler dynamics rather than rote outrage. 70K Vimeo views plus a serious cast/crew credit list suggests the execution matches the screenplay's nerve.
Reviews
Clare is a drama, but it feels incredibly realistic thanks to the humor Minnerath infuses at just the right times in her narrative, with lighter moments giving the short an engaging emotional pacing and making Clare's life feel authentic.
The film captures an ugly and chilling moment that exposes power dynamics and the failure of accountability, giving the short a very effective and unsettling emotional depth.
Festivals
- SXSW Film Festival 2022
- Palm Springs International ShortFest 2022