Teardrop
2021 · 10m · United States
Directed by Ryan Oksenberg
Genres: dark comedy, drama
Tones: darkly comic, provocative, tense
An actor's effort to find empathy with a homeless man leads to an intense standoff.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Oksenberg flips the empathy script hard—the actor becomes the antagonist, the homeless man gets to *refuse* understanding, and the whole thing tilts into dark comedy precisely when you expect sentimentality. It's a premise that makes you say 'wait, who are we supposed to root for?' and then doesn't apologize.
The tension between dark comedy and genuine provocation sits in a lineage of confrontational character work—think early Haneke or the cringe-discomfort school—though the execution feels more exploratory than resolved, which limits its formal arrival.
The turning point where the standoff stops being about the actor's performance and becomes about the homeless man's refusal to perform *for* him—that single tonal pivot, the moment empathy becomes weaponized—is where the whole 10 minutes suddenly justifies itself.
Reviews
The story is essentially Alex taking a moment of compassion and using it for his own gain and how this artist's pretentiousness blinds him from his true motivations. Avery and Madden's good performances, plus a solid, engaging story, make Teardrop worth a watch.