Naysayer
2019 · 8m · USA
Directed by David M. Helman
A recently separated father speeds down the highway, calling his estranged wife to force his way back to their newborn son — but mid-conversation, a single revelation flips the moral footing of the entire call.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Yeun's one-man show could've been tedious naval-gazing, but Helman's genius move is letting us *feel* the moral rug get pulled—the moment the information lands, the entire power dynamic inverts and suddenly the guy we were rooting for becomes the antagonist, which is the opposite of what festival crowds usually swallow.
The single-take phone call recalls the formalist rigor of someone like Chloé Zhao or the structural discipline of Koreeda, where constraint becomes style; Helman trusts the editing—or rather, the absence of it—to carry the tonal shift that lesser directors would've underlined with cuts and music cues.
What makes this work isn't the gimmick of one take or one actor—it's Yeun's microscopic performance shift the instant he hears the revelation, a tiny vocal crack and change in cadence that recontextualizes everything we've heard, turning a high-budget premise into something that lives entirely in the space between words.
Reviews
Steven Yeun delivers an intense performance, holding the screen on his own with compelling agitation and intensity.
Impressive, unnerving and tension filled — Steven Yeun did the whole thing in one take.
Festivals
- Miami International Film Festival 2019
- Cinequest Film Festival 2019
- Ashland Independent Film Festival 2019
- Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2019, Best Actor International (Steven Yeun)