Chelsea Lupkin
If you’ve ever fantasized about famous actors playing out your crazy revenge plots, you should give this dark comedy a watch.
Ticky Tacky is more stage play than short film, taking place over the course of “3 days” in a one-room set. It’s hard to keep your audience captivated while watching a chamber piece, but the standout performances will get you hooked. The major hollywood talent in this short is what makes it so impressive. The film stars none other than Oscar Isaac who has starred in major films like Inside Llewn Davis, Ex Machina, and will appear in the very anticipated Star Wars sequel coming out this month.
Writer-director Brian Petsos conjures a pseudo Wes Anderson film that follows a powerful and wealthy man (Isaac) who discovers his girlfriend’s infidelity with his cousin. What ensues is a spectacle of all the stages of grief performed with gusto worthy of an Oscar. There’s a combination of emerging psycho and adorable immaturity regarding the entire situation.
The comedic dynamic of Isaac’s character and his prepubescent, mobster sidekick ‘Gabriel’ (Julian Shatkin) pull off Petsos’s film with ease. While it’s absurd to think that a grown man would confide in such a young boy, it becomes very clear who the muscle truly is in their relationship. In other words, don’t let Gabriel’s Yoo-hoo juice box fool you. Throughout, the comedic play between who the “real” adult and child are drives the humor. All around, the performances are over the top, but that adds to the fun of it. Petsos’s actors put a serious spin on a tongue-in-cheek revenge plot. This isn’t a film that Petsos wants his audience to take seriously and he craftily reminds us at every turn with his punchy one-liners.
When we asked Petsos what inspired the film, he stated: “It was a combination of various personal experiences in conjunction with one of those typical dreams where I’m a much younger version of myself plagued with a tremendous, insatiable desire to Kill Santa.”
The moral of the story? Santa deserves what’s coming to him, men cry, and little kids are callus, soulless beings.
Ticky Tacky has shown at the Palm Springs International ShortFest, the Denver Film Festival, and the Florida Film Festival to name a few. We asked Petsos what he is working on and he let us know that he is currently trying to write more, especially with his right hand since he’s a lefty.