One of the marks of a good film is that it can draw you into its world, take you where you need to go and tell you a lot simply by virtue of being there. All You Can Eat stands out as a really strong short film because of how quickly and (seemingly) effortlessly it puts you right in the middle of the world, the people and the place with almost every single part of it. What we have here is a scene of one of countless brash "character-driven" reality shows that personally I do not care for but I know drive some networks and pull in millions. In this case we have a Food Network show with a larger than life character who hope for more but really pushes his "big fun character" any time the camera is on. It is eating him up inside and the show itself is as fake and forced as he feels his life is.
There isn't really a plot here so much as there is an impression and this impression is one of faked showmanship, emptiness and a total lack of actual humanity – and it is an impression that this short delivers really well and feels accurate from the first frame till the last. The fly-on-the-wall camera style suits the making of the "show" itself and feels very well joined together to give the film a flowing sense of freedom which adds to the realism and natural air it has. It is very well constructed (made by two people on spare time from the crew of Iron Man 3) but the real cherry is the performance from Warzel.
Although his character is fairly straightforward (sad on the inside clown), Warzel really sells it by just how natural he is, he never feels like he is acting and as a result he is the heart of the film and everything else just builds around him to make the film even stronger. The "meaning" may not be hugely enlightening or controversial but it is still impacting by how utterly true and well observed it feels. It is a simple short but it is one that knows itself incredibly well and delivers an accurate, natural and convincing situation from the camera style through to the performance from Warel. A very strong short film.
