The Sharpie
2023 · 15m · UK
Directed by Jack Carrivick
Genres: drama, LGBTQ+, thriller
A young woman who runs a blackmail racket targets a wealthy, closeted woman — but when the meet goes sideways, the would-be blackmailer finds herself held to ransom instead. A silent thriller told entirely through images.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A silent blackmail thriller is the kind of high-concept swing that could crater into pretension, but Carrivick commits hard enough to the constraint that it actually becomes subversive—the silence doesn't excuse the plot, it *weaponizes* it.
The formal restraint of dialogue-free storytelling roots this in a lineage of silent cinema and visual expressionism, and the disciplined editing that has to carry all narrative weight suggests a filmmaker thinking carefully about what each frame must do.
The entire film hinges on Carrivick's decision to let the reversal—the blackmailer becoming blackmailed—live entirely in a character's face and body, and that commitment to *show, never tell* turns a 14-minute premise into something that breathes on its own.