Luger
2019 · 11m · UK
Directed by Freddie Waters
Genres: comedy, dark comedy
Tones: darkly comic, humorous
Tom arrives at his elderly grandfather's house to find the two carers locked in a cold war with one another. When he discovers a mysterious German pistol in the kitchen, the situation lurches from sitcom bickering into something far darker.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A sitcom about bickering carers has no business being interesting—until a Luger pistol crawls out of the kitchen and the whole tonal contract burns down. Waters knows exactly when to flip the switch, and that's the kind of subversive genre sabotage that makes most curators nervous and me obsessed.
The formal rigor here lies in the delayed reveal: Waters holds the comedy frame with discipline, establishing the rhythms of domestic farce before the object introduces a shadow play that echoes darkly through postwar British television's relationship with violence and class.
The pistol is the film—not as plot device but as the hinge on which Waters pivots camera language, pacing, and sound design from warm to unsettling in a single beat, a choice that transforms a ten-minute room into something that feels architecturally deliberate.
Reviews
A wonderfully enjoyable character study... Luger is a lovely shot to the funnybone.
Each character is beautifully written and acted and we get a real feel for the personalities involved in this 'situation' comedy.