User reviews

Cashback is a gem of a short film. It has a unique visual aesthetic laced with a wicked sense of humour. Sean Ellis gets beautiful performances from his actors, played out beneath the life sapping neon of this enclosed world, brilliantly creating the boredom of the lives of the nightshift workers in a 24 hour supermarket. We're sucked into their twilight existence and treated to the surreal, bizarre and comic; as the characters each find their way to make it through the graveyard shift.

It makes you laugh and makes you think.You'll never look at a store worker the same way again. It's a short film, long on wit and imagination.

When I first watched this movie I couldn't get past the nudity enough to see the art. I watched it again and started to see that the nudes were so perfect they were more like mannequins than anything else. How can a movie about night-fill at a supermarket possibly be any good? Add Sean Biggerstaff , humour, and an outstanding writer/director such as Sean Ellis, and you get the perfect mix. Sean Ellis, in his first attempt at movie making, takes you on a journey that perfectly mixes art ( nudity, lighting, Ben's drawings), with humour. One can easily see that Sean Ellis has a great career ahead of him. One can only hope for more like him still to come! The amount of detail put into such a short amount of time certainly makes the film worthy of all the awards it has received at various festivals. The new one is now finished and ready for distribution. I'm looking forward to seeing the full length film now!

A completely refreshing short movie that is able to combine many different emotions in 20 minutes!

Working on the night shift in Sainsbury's, the movie shows how all the staff manage to pass the time to cope with the boredom of an 8 hour work shift.

Each with a completely different view on doing this which range from a meat counter, dairy products, plasters,shampoos and a unique imagination that will have you in rumination one minute, flustered the next and then laughing the other.

A brilliant performance from all actors/actresses.

I can't help but smile when I go shopping at Sainsbury's late at night...

For such a short film (15 minutes), 'Cashback' offered quite a lot.

It is about staff who work the night shift at a supermarket and the stuff they get up to. Then we see what Ben's imagination is to pass time.

There are a few laughs and all the cast do a very good job. The short film is extremely well made and does have a message. The atmosphere builds up as it goes on so it really draws you in.

At 15 minutes, you don't have much to lose, just give it a try. I enjoyed it but I don't think I saw enough to make me want to watch the full length version which was released two years later.

Don't watch if full frontal nudity will offend you.

7/10.

An OK film, it raises funnily and cleverly the questions of sex, beauty and the private moments of life. Nevertheless, I have just discovered this film a couple of weeks ago during a visit at the video store and you know what my first thought was after reading the summary of the film on the DVD cover ? "This is Nicholson Baker ! And not a single mention of it !" I read the ""Fermata in 2004 and the book upon the shelves of my library offered the possibility to share views with the help of pieces of paper between the pages, I believe it is what you call book crossing. This book, although I don't read that much, provided a great sensation because in my adolescence, I vividly wanted that kind of freezing power to undress women. Nicholson Baker has had the art of translating a common human (male especially) fantasy, I believe. I know ever since he did it again by imagining a man desirous to kill George W. Bush in "Checkpoint" after seeing the news in Iraq ! Even if many of us had that kind of fantasy, I doubt Sean Ellis was unaware of the Fermata in the process of writing Cashback, therefore, he should have added an ounce of gratitude to Baker. According to what I read on the Internet, I'm not the only one thinking that way.

Sainsburys, the night shift, nothing could be more dull. What could be worse than a movie about this seemingly mindnumbingly boring activity. However, from the very first moment, the movie grabs your attention and puts you in the shoes of Ben.

The shots are done with style and panache and particularly effective is the use of the bleak, artificial supermarket lighting which throws this whole surreal, sleepless world into perspective. Also effective is the portrayal of the nude women who are almost alien in their stillness and with their flawless features. Sean Biggerstaff is a real asset to the film as his flawless acting and his narration especially complement the film to a great extent. The comedy elements coupled with the creation of a unique atmosphere make this film what it is. However, the imagination and the simple fact that so many ideas are crammed into the fifteen or so minutes of this short really make this film incredible.

I dont really know what to think about this short. Its a student in art who studying the female beauty and the relation of time. Pretty. Interesting anyway but it was too short in my opinion. It contains some nudity because the student is interested by feminity. I enjoyed it anyway but too short in my opinion.

alright - i first watched the full length movie, and this prompted me to look up the original short movie. i was astonished to see the exact scenes from the full movie comprise this short length. initially i thought somehow these scenes were later integrated into the full length, but my thought is that the full length was probably already in post-production when someone decided to 'promote' the film by giving out this short version first (which is nothing bad).

it actually works as a short movie, but having seen the full one i cant really comment on it because it is like a trailer to the full movie - it has the essence of the main plot, but nothing more than a hint of the beautiful ideas and artwork of the full length movie.

i loved the full movie, watch it and probably you will like it too

10/10, which is how i vote for the full length movie :)

peace

It's quite engaging to watch. quite funny. love story plot is cliche. overall a good movie.

As a photographer, I get this movie. It's about seeing life in it's tiny moments and being able to capture them forever. That's what the main character Ben who's an aspiring sketch/painter shows us throughout the film. That ability that so few have of being able to show down time, even stop it, and find the lines, curves, elegance and refinement of life. This is something shared with great athletes who can slow down their game and see the avenues of winning.

Yes, Ben's obsessed with the beauty of the female form, and you'll see lots of naked bodies, but most of the world's greatest artist have that same obsession. They've been able to capture them and share them with the world as great works of art.

Ben's journey also takes us through his personal struggles of being unable to relate with people in the real world. Something many artist share.

I find this movie a wonderful capsule of how to to find the allure of life. It's right under our noses folks. Just slow down, take the moment in, and let time come to a stop, and it's there.

CASHBACK was nominated for the 2006 Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film, losing to SIX SHOOTER. While the film had an interesting style and was filled with angst, I wonder if it was so artistic or interesting to merit the nomination. While I have not seen all the other films it competed against, I felt that perhaps it was an odd choice because on one level it might be seen as an artistic film but on the other it really just looked like a young film student trying to make a pornographic and offensive film that could be considered mainstream. The film is crammed with full-frontal nudity of some very beautiful women, though the scenes are not necessarily of a sexual nature (i.e., they are not engaging in sex acts). However, there are more up close crotch shots than I would have expected for this category and the crude sexual references (such as the sausage and shampoo scenes) just made the film seem rather gross in spots. Keeping the nudity and dropping the shampoo/sausage scenes would have greatly improved the film and given the project a greater sense of artistry--not smut.

Perhaps I am just a prude, but I was left feeling quite mixed about the film. It was interesting but seemed very gratuitous as well--like a film made by a few teens whose parents were away for the weekend.

By the way, if they DID want to make a mainstream film, having the movie star a guy named "Biggerstaff" didn't help their cause.

Not impressed. I was hoping this movie was going to be better but it was just stupid. I thought it was a huge waste of my time. I would not watch this again.