No Pets
2021 · 10m · USA
Directed by Billie Michael
Tones: absurdist, humorous, tense
A woman scrambles to hide her cat when the super shows up to check the radiator. To avoid eviction she spins an increasingly baroque cover story.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A whole short hung on a hidden cat — that's the kind of low-stakes brinkmanship most features can't manage. Renters' panic as comic engine, no moralizing about housing, just the sweat.
Real-time apartment paranoia hinged on hiding one cat — small-scale Joanna-Arnow dread played as sitcom that refuses to wink. Modest but precise.
Real-time apartment paranoia hinged on the location of one cat — the small-scale dread of writer/director/star Michael handling all three pressures is exactly the kind of natural-performance vehicle that works in this form.
Reviews
takes a simple conceit and finds plenty of tension, awkwardness, and humor