The Voorman Problem

When esteemed psychiatrist "Williams" (Martin Freeman) turns up in the office of a prison governor, he is presented with the problem of the inmate "Voorman" who really believes he is a god. What's more, he seems to have managed to convince the entire institution that he is too! Well a consultation is obviously in order and so he sits opposite the straight-jacketed gent (Tom Hollander) who proceeds to offer to prove his credentials by making Belgium disappear! Easy enough to counter, surely - or did we never actually listen to "J'aime la vie" at Eurovision after all? This is quite a quirky short feature that shows off an engaging mischievousness from Hollander and presents us with quite a conundrum of our own as it ends with us questioning just about all of the certainties we started with. Sleight of hand or act of god? Worth ten minutes, I'd say.

Today I went to a special showing of the Oscar-nominated Live Action films. This was a very unusual year because I don't see any clear winner nor did I see any film I disliked. Oddly, however, I didn't see any I loved either and picking the winner is amazingly difficult.

Of all the nominees, "The Voorman Problem" and "Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?" are by far the slightest and least likely to win the Oscar. HOWEVER, both films are very good and I am thrilled they included them. That's because the other three are all super-depressing (one is about child soldiers/rape and murder, another is about domestic violence and the other is about a child who is dying). I and the rest of the audience really NEEDED a film like "Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?" as we might have otherwise just stuck our heads in the oven when we got home! Now I am not being critical of these depressing films--they deserved the nominations. It was just nice to see one a little lighter and more fanciful like "The Voorman Problem".

The film stars Martin Freeman--a very, very familiar face these days. He was a Hobbit in the recent Peter Jackson films and also had very memorable appearances in "Love Actually" (very memorable in this case), "Hot Fuzz" and "Sean of the Dead" (among others).

Freeman plays a psychiatrist, Dr. Williams. Williams has been called to the local prison because one of the inmates believes he's a god--and all the prisoners are now sharing this belief! They worship the man and the prison routine is in shambles. So, not surprisingly, the prison wants to ship this guy off to the looney bin. What happens next? I won't tell you....you've GOT to see it for yourself. Funny, dark and very clever. It probably won't win the Oscar but I a was sure thrilled to see it.

While Mark Gill's "The Voorman Problem" is intended to be darkly comedic, I found the short mostly disturbing and often offputting. That's definitely not a bad thing, but the comedic element, in my opinion, is something I found extremely subtle rather than prominent, as many viewers of the short had claimed. The film is a neatly and intriguingly shot short following a psychiatrist named Doctor Williams (Martin Freeman) who is called into a mental hospital for urgent evaluation of a patient named Voorman (Tom Hollander), who has convinced practically every other patient in the facility that he is indeed God. When Williams visits Voorman, he takes note of his slow, confident speech and his wily personality, as Voorman claims to have created the world in nine days. When Williams asks how that is possible, seeing as he himself is thirty-five-years-old and has clear and vivid memories of his childhood, Voorman replies in an assured manner that he himself created those memories, ideas, Williams as a person, and even Williams' skepticism of his actual powers. The short is beautifully shot, with wide, spacious shots depicting both men in conversation and even a terrific overhead shot that shows the contents of a desk early in the film. With vague but present vibes of the underrated science-fiction film K-PAX and a solid couple twist towards the end, "The Voorman Problem" finds ways to intrigue the same way it finds ways to mystify.