Mouse
2017 · 11m · United States
Directed by Celine Held, Logan George
Genres: dark comedy, drama
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, tense
Two desperate addicts find a dead mouse factory-sealed in a can of beans and try to capitalize on their 'golden ticket,' spiraling into an eleven-minute descent into madness.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A dead mouse in a can of beans as the engine of an eleven-minute descent into addiction psychosis—this is the kind of premise that sounds like a joke until you realize Held and George are *deadly serious* about it, and somehow that lunacy is exactly the point.
The film's formal restraint—trapping us in the claustrophobia of the can, the apartment, the addicts' fractured logic—echoes the lineage of body-horror and domestic surrealism, though the tonal discipline occasionally wavers under the weight of its own absurdism.
The decision to keep the camera tight and static on the can itself, treating this revolting object with the gravity of a found relic, transforms what could've been shock comedy into something genuinely unsettling on a shoestring budget.
Reviews
Physical, intense, and highly emotional, 'Mouse,' which premiered at SXSW, is anchored by two of the most dynamic performances we've seen this year. What results is a brilliant display of comedic, gag-inducing drama.