Fire
2016 · 14m
Directed by Christopher Andrews
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, fantasy
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, mythic
Teenager Jack's hands leak fire whenever his anger spikes; growing up under a violent, criminal father, he looks for someone who can teach him control.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
It's a solid metaphor-as-genre piece, sure, but the anger-as-fire conceit is almost *too* on-the-nose—the kind of thing that works in a YA novel and feels a touch safe here, even with the dark father subplot trying to complicate it.
Andrews situates this firmly in the lineage of magical-realist coming-of-age cinema—there's echoes of *Kin* and the Safdie sensibility—but the film's formal restraint, particularly in how it holds on Jack's face during moments of control, suggests a thoughtfulness about restraint as its own kind of power.
The decision to shoot the fire effects with practical restraint rather than spectacle—letting the magic feel like a burden Jack's learning to contain rather than a display—is what elevates this from metaphor into something genuinely felt, and it's anchored by a performance that knows when to hold back.