NO TRAILER CURRENTLY AVAILABLE
First, the Recap:
Ever have those group conversations where someone ends up seriously derailing the atmosphere with that one inappropriate comment? From there, it just devolves into a verbal melee of mistaken intent, continually misunderstood references, and a digging of the proverbial hole, which the individual simply makes deeper the more they try to reset the course of discussion. For a particular group of pals hanging out during poker night in a friend’s basement, this scenario becomes all too real. Initially innocent enough with joke telling by Amanda (Amanda Nave) and the associated groans of “heard it before”, the gab begins to traverse the realm of non-sequiturs in topics ranging from comedy to more adult-oriented content–laughs abounding–at the outset.
After one awkward pause, Chris (Christopher Hahn) makes a random comment about Brad (Brad Nicholas) that opens the door for things to get a tad out of control. Putting a potential fire out, however, things return to a semblance of order thanks to humorous notions from Amanda, Kelly (Kelly Collette) and Mike (Michael Peake). As the center of chatter moves over to Wyatt (voiced by Dave Davenport), though, Chris once again opens his mouth, and drops a bombshell that careens the entire table into chaos. Trying to indicate it was all in jest, the group descends on Chris, chiding and deriding him for his comments, even accusing him of being a “puppist”. As Wyatt defends himself and Chris sinks deeper into his self-created chasm, the real bond among friends comes out.
Next, my Mind:
With this 8+ minute short film, writer/director/producer David Cornelius follows up 2015’s fantastically witty effort “The First Date” with this equally well-done, though more comically irreverent, look at the concepts of friendship, topical faux pas, and how we deal with tricky and potentially problematic subjects when we live in such a PC society. The “dangers” of having someone be offended by something we say is taken to a interesting and unexpected place in this narrative, and it is this uniqueness that actually gives the film its intended impact. This, on top of the simply outrageous and purposefully clichéd phrases and ideas Chris attempts to utilize to justify his inflammatory statements, does make the whole mess even more entertaining in its delivery.
The cast here is so well put together, as you honestly believe without question you could easily be watching an actual group of friends being video-taped while randomly bantering on and on about anything and everything. Additionally, each person genuinely brings their own individual piece to the overall picture, and singling out particular actors really wouldn’t do justice to the whole. This is firmly an ensemble effort through and through, and Nave, Hahn, Nicholas, Collette, Peake and Davenport’s voicing of Wyatt all work in tandem to make a wonderfully realistic grouping of people interacting as friends do–with the combination of jokes, seriousness, playfulness, derisiveness, and taking whole-hearted advantage to capitalize on a friend’s unfortunate comments.
In total, while some of the more saucy humor isn’t really in this reviewer’s wheelhouse, there’s no denying this is a very solid independent film effort that reflects the condition of current society and its handling of delicate matters while successfully illustrating that ultimately, when the dust clears, true friends can both have fun and forgive.
As always, this is all for your consideration and comment. Until next time, thank you for reading!
