Cashback

Sean Ellis' debut feature length film, Cashback, adapted from a short of his own, is an ugly little insomniac fantasy with some atmospheric flourishes but pitifully lowbrow sensibilities. Toilet humor and sex gags are not above the film, which includes in its repertoire of creepy sexual moments a sequence in which its protagonist undresses an entire grocery store full of women that are frozen in time (in his imagination, of course) and then sketches them one by one. The artist in question is Ben Willis (Sean Biggerstaff), an art student still heartbroken over a break up with the gone too soon to care about Suzy (Michelle Ryan). His inability to sleep after the loss of Suzy, which inexplicably never even makes him even the slightest bit groggy, leads him to put his spare 8 hours a day to good use by working the night shift at a supermarket. It's there that he decides that the best way to pass time is to pretend it's not moving at all. He imagines that he can stop time at will and in these captured moments he rediscovers life's beauty (by ogling the uniformly statuesque late night customers).

The film has some funny moments and at the very least Ellis makes an effort to give it a unique voice and style. It's just much too paltry to succeed and far too silly to carry its endless philosophical mutterings. By the midway mark, the main narrative trajectory has all but ended and the film moves on to one subplot after the next including unnecesary childhood flashbacks, a botched second romance, and a random soccer match of all things. It goes nowhere and says nothing of value. Worst of all, it's lethargic and self-important in the same beats where it's also grotesque and asinine. It's both too smart and too stupid for its own good, something I never thought possible. There's a major identity crisis at play here, but Ellis certainly has potential.

Grade: C-