I had seen a short from the maker of this one before; Dinner and a Movie, which was a rather unusual way to make a sweet film and in a different vein, so too is Russian Roulette. Apparently made by Aston as a mini-break from doing other work, the film is very small in physical scale, since we find ourselves entirely in the London bedroom of Lucy, who is living alone in London, struggling to make connections with people and has taken to the dread Chatroulette to find people to talk to. She is ready to give up on that when she connects to a cosmonaut in the International Space Station; she wants to talk about space, he wants to see her boobs, but somehow a connection forms.
The short running time and the very sparse production means that more weight is put on the characters to deliver. This is increased by the fact that the plot is pretty slim and that the goals for the film is to be sweet, not to deliver too much more than that. Fortunately this works well and the film mixes Chatroulette comedy with a core of sweet truth so that what you get is a short scene where it is amusing but also has an element of charm which has sentiment but is not sentimental. The performances are a big part of this since Hill is engagingly real but sweet while Lock is a bit lusty but still a person (which is not particularly normal on that website).
It doesn't amount to much but I did still like it for what it did well – it amused me and made me smile, which for a few minutes of my time and very little money to make, is a very nice return on investment.
