Choosing Sides – A Short Film Review
Choosing Sides is a fast-paced, funny short concentrating on two parents and their son at the family dinner table. This short is a very witty and well paced comedy poking fun at religions and parenting.
Peter (Timothy J. Cox), a catholic father, and Ellen (Rachel Lynn Jackson), a Jewish mother, are both sitting at the table with their son Mikey, who is approaching his twelfth birthday. The conversation soon turns to religion when Peter comments on twelve being a special number. What ensues is some excellent exchanges between the pair as each pitch their religion to their son selling the benefits and trying to make him buy into one or the other. The promotion soon turns personal as they begin to attack each other and poke fun at their respective religion. When Mikey finally gets a word in, he stuns them both.
Lee Loechler directed this five minute short and has done a pretty good job. Being shot completely in one room will always limit what can be done with the camera but Lee keeps this moving along at an excellent pace with some quick edits and fast shots complementing the dialogue nicely.
The script was wrote by Yael Green and he has given us a brilliant little short. The dialogue is funny, with lots of sharp one-liners as the two characters exchange lines with one another. Yael manages to keep the jokes on topic and fresh, without ever tiring of the subject matter, I have a feeling that Yael could have kept this quality content up for quite some time. What works best is the conclusion of the short with Mikey making his own decision that surprises both his mother and father. Yael manages to build the tension levels nicely and then turns it towards the son in the conclusion of the movie.
The three cast members all worked very well together. Timothy J. Cox and Rachel Lynn Jackson, the two leads, had some great chemistry together and were very believable as a married couple. I have seen Timothy J. Cox as a number of comedic characters and he is a natural in that type of role. This is the first time I have seen Rachel Lynn Jackson but she was very strong in the role of Ellen. The pair are at their best when Mikey rejects both religions, the way their facial expressions change is priceless. Max Abe Plush was great as Mikey. Although he did not have much to say, due to his bickering parents, his actions were what made his performance, as he watched and rolled his eyes as his parents began to argue. When he did manage to get a word in he was very strong, giving us a delivery beyond his years and coming across as the true grown-up of the dinner table.
This was a very funny short and coming in at just over a five minute run-time is fast paced and fun comedy. Extremely well written dialogue and strong performances made this easy and enjoyable to watch.
