Discharge
2024 · 3m · USA
Directed by Aidan Macaluso
Genres: dark comedy, drama
Tones: dark, darkly comic, melancholic
A grandson lies to his grandmother — who has dementia — about gifts he never sent, then has to live with himself for the next three minutes. Compact moral wreckage.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Under three minutes, one lie, no escape route — finally a short that respects my time and my contempt for sentimentality.
Macaluso runs a complete ethical arc through a single phone call in under three minutes — Lynne Ramsay's compression instinct working at miniature scale. A small piece, but precisely cut.
Three minutes, one phone call, a grandson lying to his dementia-stricken grandmother about gifts he never sent — that's a complete ethical arc compressed to its hardest edge.
Reviews
A brisk dark comedy showing the phone call between a grandson and his grandmother, and the action that follows.