Curve

Palms are sweaty. Not just because it's hot outside. "Curve" is probably one of my new favorite short films. The concept is simple: a woman wakes up on a smooth, curved concrete surface, with a bottomless pit a few inches from her. What happened? Will be survive get out of there? Will she fall to her death? This is a simple idea, a primal fear. Every second of the short is extremely tense and terrifying. I instantly had many questions and got sucked into it.

Laura Jane Turner, the sole actress, kills it. An unnamed character, not a single word said, and you identify to her immediately. I'm not an expert on the directing aspect, but Tim Egan did a great job. The whole short takes place in a very small space, barely more than a square meter, and the various angles saves things from getting boring. Kind of reminded me of "Buried" (that movie where Ryan Reynolds is buried alive inside a coffin). The cinematography is great too, and the visual effects are great. The absence of soundtrack and the sound design help you immerse even more in the short.

Not gonna spoil anything, but the ending will kick you in the gut. At least that was the case for me. As memorable as the last shots of The Blair Witch project, The shining, The mist, Martyrs, The descent (the original ending, not the one where they cut the last minute), in my opinion.

Every review I read about this short says stuff about how it's depicting depression and hopelessness but I couldn't disagree more... I think it depicts the exact opposite honestly.

Its a dramatized example of the animalistic instinct humans have of survival and everlasting hope even in moments of complete weakness and vulnerability... even when humans are placed in positions where there's "no way out", like the character in this short film, we still have the slightest ounce of hope left in us because that's just human nature. She does everything she can to survive until the bitter end...

So, no, this short wasn't about falling into the pits of sadness and depression, it's about how how even in the darkest/most helpless of moments, there is an inherent instinct in all of us to do everything possible for survival. All humans have hope.

Well, this is a curveball.

I love the visual design. The sound design is outstanding. The makeup and blood effects are swell. I think Laura Jane Turner gives a pretty great performance, portraying the fright, alarm, desperation, and determination of the single unnamed character. Writer-director Tim Egan's camerawork zeroes in on every meticulously coordinated, deliberate movement of Turner as the character grapples with her plight, and especially in the final moments especially, his editing serves that same purpose. From a technical standpoint, this short is very well-rounded. I appreciate this unique, somewhat fantastical take on the film genre of "lone person, trapped and in peril." As viewers we can readily identify with the character in the instinctual urge for survival, and the heightened emotional and physiological state that accompanies it.

Yet I can't help but feel that something's missing, that some greater truth has bowed out from the finished product.

It's easy and natural to theorize about the nature of the scenario, though without anything in the short beyond what we see, this is a fruitless pursuit. It's also easy and natural to try to read some meaning into the abridged arc on hand, and one could readily say this is a metaphor for Life, Struggle, or any grand overarching idea. That could be true - substance is in the eye of the beholder - but that pursuit also feels superfluous here.

The result is a short that's simple in concept, finely realized, handily (if not wholly) engaging, and peculiarly intriguing. What's it all for? I honestly don't know. But that doesn't mean we can't appreciate 'Curve' for what we plainly get on the face of it.

A very economical efficient look at sadness, depression, addiction or whatever you want to see. Firstly, unlike other reviewers, I feel that the lack of context or a before story made it even better. More universal and more relatable. And I think the movie is not about how you got there but about what you experience there, on the slippery slope of your fight. If you are looking at it through the lens of mental illness, the part when she sees the blood stains on the other side seems to indicate the impact of people around her. How well or how badly the people around us handled the slippery curve can have a direct impact on how well you handle it yourself. Overall, loved it. My only gripe was that the end felt a bit hurried.

The opening shots of waves and noise I could have done without, but from that first slide and hit of anxiety, this one delivers very simply and effectively. Essentially we have a single character, dropped onto a dangerously curved smooth piece of concrete, just about clinging to it with some small friction preventing her dropping into an abyss below. Perhaps there is some meaning to be taken from it about the nature of life or something like this, but if you are thinking about this while watching it, then the film has probably failed you because for me it was a very gut level film which rode that sense of fear and dread very well.

Credit to the actress, because she sells it, while the simplicity of the concept makes it easy to go with – there is not enough here to make you ask big questions or poke the logic of the situation; like the character herself, all you can do is try to survive the moment. In this way it is visually effective, and has strong sound work to add to the feeling. Like I said, the opening shots I could do without, but after this it is as simple as it is unsettlingly effective.