Jason Sondhi
A found-footage mystery, a bold single-take dramatic monologue, and a piercing portrayal of young love and emerging sexuality, fishing, directed by Josie Charles from star Esme Allen’s one-person play, is a lot of things at once and is uniformly great at all of them. Like a British Ferris Bueller, Allen looks directly into the camera to address the audience but she possesses a weirdo’s charisma—captivating and entertaining for sure, but more than a little gross! Over 8 minutes of runtime, the teenager breathlessly (and manically) guides us through why she’s trapped herself in her room.
The explanation is not a fourth-wall break, but instead a camcorder vlog, as the film simulates a selfie single-take for the entirety of the film. The technology is supposed to establish the scene as 2006 but, with our current love of retro styles, this detail seems indeterminate, and ultimately unimportant. What is important is to relate to you the excellence of Allen’s performance. Due to the format, she is not only the actor but the camera operator, and the choreography of this, designed with DoP Lucrezia Pollice, is the kind of standout technical element that demonstrates the requisite care and intentionality needed for greatness in an otherwise lo-fi piece with a mere £500 budget.
Allen serves the dual-role of actor and camera operator, a choreography that required much rehearsal
As for the story itself, I want to be careful not to spoil it. While not a total shock, I found the central mystery of the piece to unfurl enjoyably. However, I will reveal that it is provocative and speaks to the “intensity of first loves” according to the film’s creators. Charles was keen to direct a story that “portrays the rollercoaster ride that is being a teenage girl,” which attracted her to Allen’s source material. Having not seen Allen’s original hour-long play I cannot contextualize the adaptation, but the downscaling in length has left a tight piece, one that grabs audience attention quickly and does not let up.
The film comes online today as part of a late awards push. The film qualified for Oscar® by winning the Narrative Grand Jury Prize at Slamdance in January, which immediately piqued my interest as I find the fest’s winners to be either fantastic or terrible, but never boring. The 2022 winner, Ratking, continues to stick in my mind in fact, and would make an interesting double-bill with fishing—both films use gross provocation as a tool to get under the skin, but are, when you peel back the layers, universalistic stories about anxiety and uncertainty.
With preliminary voting for the shortlists starting today we wish fishing good luck! As for next steps, Allen is in the process of adapting fishing into a feature script, and Charles has a new shot-on-camcorder short hitting festivals. Titled Blue Violet, it is the 2nd of a proposed “camcorder trilogy”, and it would be great to share that with you as well when the time comes.