Red Wine
2019 · 20m · CA
Directed by Santiago Menghini
Tones: tense, theatrical
A vengeful man attends a fundraising banquet intending to poison his former colleague's glass of wine, but his carefully laid plan spirals out of control when he realizes there has been a mix-up.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Black-tie poisoning plot goes sideways. Rope-Strangers-on-a-Train comp is a confident announcement that this is a craft exercise — fine, but the synopsis is the whole movie.
Menghini staging a Rope-style poison plot inside black-tie civility, where the tension comes from glassware misdirection — this is competent Hitchcockian craftsmanship rather than revelation. Twenty minutes is generous for the premise; I respect the discipline if not the ambition.
A Hitchcockian poisoning plot played entirely within black-tie banquet niceties is a 20-minute exercise in restraint where the wine glasses do the violence — Santiago Menghini's craft is technical enough to make Rope-style misdirection actually work. Solid genre execution.
Reviews
Red Wine is in the style of a Hitchcockian thriller, with an exquisite tension flowing as freely as the wine.
Menghini's direction is old-school, with a focus on his actors and providing their performances a canvas of incredibly composed shots that communicate in a classic style.
Festivals
- Fantasia International Film Festival 2019, Audience Award Best Quebec Short
- Fantasia International Film Festival 2019, MATV Creativity Prize
- Calgary International Film Festival 2019