I Make Good Sounds At Parties
2020 · 8m
Directed by Amanda Prager
Genres: comedy, coming-of-age, drama
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic, tender
A personal shout-out to the bashful and struggling, this short empathizes with those who desperately want to fit in at parties and can't.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone expects a short about party anxiety to wallow in it, but Prager's refusal to punch down—treating social failure as dignity rather than pathology—is quietly subversive in a way most indie comedies never risk.
The film sits comfortably in the coming-of-age tradition while maintaining formal restraint; its tender-dark tonal balance recalls the best of contemporary short form, where tenderness and contempt for sentiment coexist.
What makes this work is the decision to let silence do the empathizing—Prager trusts the camera to hold on her subjects' faces long enough that we stop watching performance and start witnessing recognition, which costs almost nothing and changes everything.
Reviews
The writing needs to be applauded, again, for its sheer simplicity, relatability and most importantly, incorporating the varying styles of humour. I Make Good Sounds At Parties could have very easily slipped into slapstick humour, but in the delicate handling exhibited by both Prager and Goldman, the film balances itself on wholesome comedy, offering everything from wit to situational to dark.