Camerawoman stars Meg Rennie as Mandy, a camerawoman who loves photography and has a job for a web magazine that allows her to do what she loves and pay her bills. Things start to unravel though when her current boss goes on leave, and the new boss puts her on an assignment with Cindy (Polly Tregear), a reporter with a toxic personality, to interview Stefan (Naji Basma), a local parkour legend. Things get heated during the interview, and when they get back to the office Cindy attacks Mandy. As this is happening, someone is sending Mandy threatening texts, claiming to know about her past. Are there reasons below the surface why Mandy lives alone and doesn't see any friends or family? As the story goes on, and the threats get worse, Mandy starts to unravel. Will she find out who is doing this to her before she loses control?
This was pretty good. I think the strongest element was Rennie's performance, combined with how her character was written and shot--and the cinematography overall. Mandy is a character we can root for and want to see good things happen to, so as things get worse, there's a hope for some kind of resolution in her favor that kept me interested. There were two elements that I had trouble with though. The first was how the dialog would sometimes play out between the characters when a plot point was about to be revealed. You'd have one character say something like "I need to tell you something," and the other say "okay, what is it?" And then from there it would go like "well, it's just, I..." "C'mon, out with it, what do you want to tell me?" "Well, I... I just..." "Come on, spit it out, what's the matter?" I think you can get away with this once or twice, but it happened a lot, especially as we got near the end. The other thing was the non-linear story telling, it wasn't always clear when different events were happening. As the film goes on, it felt like it was more by design, but the problem was early on the sense was things were happening linearly, only to find out they weren't. I don't know how you fix that though, because I think a non-linear approach worked, it's just how do you tip off the viewer that that's where you're going? Overall though this worked for me, and I enjoyed it.
Meg Rennie doesn't have anything else listed on IMDb, but for only having this one credit she did really well. I think part of that too was how the part was written. There were no over-the-top losing it scenes, it was more a gradual breakdown, but even then, Rennie needs to sell it in a way that keeps us wanting to know her story, and she did that. I liked the other performances as well, but without Rennie's the whole thing wouldn't work, because the story was leaning so much on her to get it right. Like the Cindy character, who's really not nice, while she may help us like Mandy more because we're sympathetic to her--who hasn't had a toxic work colleague?--by the same token, we already have to identify with Mandy in that situation to make that work. Another example is Mandy's old friend from school, who seems really obnoxious, without understanding that Mandy's lonely, and without Rennie selling that to us in a way that makes us sympathetic, we'd be like "why are you giving that woman your number? Run away!" It all works though to give us a complete story that I wanted to stick with throughout.
Making a movie on a small budget isn't easy, but I really liked how Pearson worked within the limited means he had to give us a film that felt complete and entertaining. Yes, part of that is making sure the lead turns in a solid performance, but it never felt like he was asking too much of her either. The scene above was a good example, where Mandy gets more threatening texts, and she decides to call her mother. It's a tense call, because they're estranged from each-other, but then we also get Mandy's longing for someone to be in her life to support her through things like this. There were some special effects in the animations of the phone screen being projected on next to her as she answered the texts or looked for her mother's number, but beyond that, it's a woman sitting on a bench going through a crisis and reaching out to someone for support, and not getting it. It doesn't cost a lot, but when it's done right, it still has the same punch as an expensive scene with a lot of effects.
One of the elements of the story is that Mandy doesn't like social media, and the sense is that she's such a great photographer that her boss is okay with it, despite the fact that she works for a web magazine and doesn't promote any of their articles as a result. From a promotional standpoint, social media is a necessary evil, but then there are parts of it I really like, like interacting with fun posts by fellow creatives. The problem is, while I'm looking at those, I find myself drafting a big comment on how I think building a sports arena in downtown Philadelphia is a bad idea, and while I don't end up posting it because I ultimately decide I don't want to bother with getting involved with something like that, plus I don't think a post like that will help me promote my work, the whole thing ends up being a time suck that only results in my blood pressure going up. In that sense I think maybe Mandy has the right idea, but then I remember all the great parts, like liking and retweeting someone's funny post or new creative endeavor. We find out later that Mandy's prohibition on social media goes deeper, which I think is a cool idea, because it gets away from the idea that social media is either all good or all bad.
Finally, this was shot in Bristol in the UK, which I've never been to before--our school trip to England and Scotland didn't take us out that far west--but here in the Philadelphia area we have our own Bristol--which I've also never been too, I've only ever seen it from the train when it stops there between here and Trenton, NJ, from which I get another train to New York City. Our Bristol's claim to fame is a 1961 song by Philadelphia doo-wop group The Dovells called "The Bristol Stomp." It also has America's longest continuously operating inn, The King George II Inn, which opened in the late 17th century. Anyway, the UK Bristol seems a lot nicer, and as an American, we don't usually get to see a Bristol when we get a UK movie here, it's either London, or a quaint seaside town. I don't know if there's a market here in the States for more of the UK than we usually get, but I appreciated it.
And with that, I'll wrap this up. You can currently stream this for free on Tubi, or rent it on Amazon for $.99. However you do it, this is an indie project worth checking out and supporting. Pearson, Rennie, and everyone else did a really good job here.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17394602
And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.
.png)
No comments:
Post a Comment