Suzy Makes Cupcakes

One cool little flick.

At first taste, it gives off a succulent buttery direction by Jayson Therrien, as usual. It has light and fluffy acting by the cast that is quirky, funny, and quite filling. The editing is not frozen and gives off scents of Fargo or Snatch. Sprinkled generously with humour but has a very important message. It could've used more raspberries as it leaves you wanting more. What happened? What's going to happen? Was there something in those cupcakes?

Overall a must-watch. Always happy to see local Calgarian artists in such a well-shot production.

Now I want a cupcake.

It seems fitting that Director Jayson Therrien had a role in Fargo (season 2) , because there is definitely a little Fargo-esque aroma wafting out of the kitchen here. Also I got a hint of Tarantino as well.

Suzy (Alison Lynch) is the long suffering wife of her abusive husband Johnny (Duff Zayonce). But Suzy has had enough. Johnny is a low level runner/member of a local crime gang and is on his way to his bosses to drop off $150k in cash which is sitting in a bowling bag in the lounge room ... where Suzy has a gun on Johnny and ominously Suzy has covered the couch he is sitting on with plastic.

The hapless Johnny says "Goddamn it woman ! This is a three year old couch! Why did you put a.cover on it ?" We then instantly flashback to Johnny beating and abusing Suzy and Johnny may be the ONLY person on the planet who hasn't worked out why the plastic is there. I chuckled at this point wondering if writer (Bethany Maines) was making an overt homage to Lethal Weapon 2 when underling Hans is called to his boss Arjen Rudd after losing the Krugerands and is executed over a plastic drop cloth. Anyway back to Suzy.

There is a really creative visual treatment I don't recall ever seeing exactly like this before which is a 3 way vertical split of the screen and scenes roll down within each column like slot machines. It's a great way to show a back or side story not needing dialogue and serves as a transition to a new scene. It's very cool.

Alison Lynch is great, she can whiplash from an authentic pretension of tragedy about the soon-to-be missing Johnny into stony faced sarcasm in a nano-second. Bethany Maines gives Lynch this great zinger: Johnny calls Suzy a 'useless cow' Suzy deadpans back with "ooooh bovine insults ... this is starting to feel like last Christmas". I laughed out loud.

I'm gonna leave the review there and not spoil. This is a great little short, from which you will definitely get a payoff for the 10min investment of your attention.

Futhermore, Jayson and the creative team have done a killer job on the end titles which look so twee they could indeed have come from Fargo or perhaps more accurately the second season of Women Who Kill.

Finally a shout to to Jayson for closing with a card that spells out the extent of the appalling level of domestic violence that women face every day and the card incudes referrals to get help. Nice.

Jayson Therrien is one to keep your eye on.

This film is fun and clever! I really enjoyed it. That is the short review.

With screening at over 10 festivals around North America and winning multiple film awards that alone should make you want to invest 10 ish minutes in this lovely film. That is why I made the effort to check it out at our local festival. It starts off with a close up of the lead Suzy(Allison Lynch). She is obviously been abused and holding a gun and in a zone. We realize she has Johnny, her husband/abuser on the ropes. With a clever editing style and quick pace this film moves fast. Similar to Therrien's first short "Operation: Clean Slate" both are worth the watch. Excited to see his next film.