Squirrel
2019 · 16m · USA
Directed by Alex Kavutskiy
Tones: darkly comic, humorous, tense
A woman's capacity for forgiveness gets stress-tested by a deeply inadequate apology. Two L.A. people orbit each other, an obscure Rat Race quote, and the void where the right words should be.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Anchoring a whole short on a Rat Race quote is the kind of unhinged commitment I respect. Cringe comedy that admits there are no right words is more honest than 90% of indie drama.
Cringe-comedy reconciliation hinging on a Rat Race quote is the perfectly absurd hinge — Cassavetes at apartment scale via early Duplass is the right scale. Specificity does the work.
At 16 minutes, building a cringe-comedy reconciliation around an obscure quote from Rat Race (2001) is the kind of specific load-bearing absurdity I love. Andrea Rosen and Max Jenkins is a great pairing.
Reviews
A masterfully-crafted cringe comedy.