Toxic. Cortometraje americano de Mike Manning
2019 · 14m · Estados Unidos
Directed by Mike Manning
Genres: dark comedy, drama
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic
When Darren agrees to take Irene to a birthday party, the night descends into his fragile ego as it becomes clear that it will not meet his expectations.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Most films about male fragility at social events are either punchlines or therapy sessions—Manning finds a third lane, one where the birthday party becomes a mirror and nobody's comfortable looking into it. It's weird enough to work, conventional enough to sting.
The formal restraint here—shooting the evening's humiliations in real time, no cutaways, no relief—places it squarely in the lineage of social-realist discomfort that runs from Haneke through contemporary European television, though Manning's American setting and dark comic undertone give it its own tonal register.
The decision to stay locked on Darren's face as his expectations crumble, never letting us escape into omniscience, turns a familiar premise into something claustrophobic and honest—that single formal choice is what makes the 14 minutes feel earned rather than obvious.