directed by:
Mike Clarke written by: Mike Clarke genre: Drama |
Once you get to that point where you're unsure about how you're going to be able to feed your child, I don't know that there's a scarier level to reach as a young parent. Shelly has clearly fallen on hard times, and there are legitimate reasons to believe she might not be done falling by the time we meet her for the first time onscreen. From the law arriving at her door to bringing her daughter to what seems like the worst possible place to bring a child - her friend Debs' house - and trying to convince different people to lend her some money, Shelly is a heartbeat away from making a bad situation even worse.
What I liked about "Make Believe" right away is the realness of this short film. You've probably even met someone a lot like Shelly in your own life at some point. Maybe that Shelly you knew had her own kid, like Daisy. Perhaps you remember what it's like to meet someone that's trapped in an endless cycle of a hell of their own making, or maybe you've met someone like Shelly that you don't really know at all, yet can instantly sense the dire straits she's in. I'll fully admit, as a person who never had kids, I have no idea what age people should actually be when they choose to become parents, because none of it makes any logical sense to me. Shelly still seems way too young to be having kids from my own warped perspective, but to each their own, I suppose. What I can tell you for sure though, is that the cycle of poverty is sure to continue if you take on too much in your youth, and a film like "Make Believe" should be shown as a public service announcement to help stop people from having kids way too damn soon! Written/Directed by Mike Clarke, "Make Believe" is something extraordinarily special. No joke, you could write essays on the importance of a film like this. Whether it's about what it's actually saying and showing you, or what it implies, there are profound life lessons in "Make Believe" that'll hit you square-on like a punch in the gut. Clarke does not make this snapshot of life easy on you – his film is savagely sad, but so very, very real and something to certainly be proud of. Sophia Leanne Kelly is nothing short of excellent in her role as Shelly. Usually, it's Horror movies that have us yelling at the screen for the main characters to choose differently than they're about to, but here in this heavy Drama, you'll be cursing her out and shaking your head at the choices Shelly makes along the way. That's what really starts to make "Make Believe" even more interesting, though. The more that we get into the story's characters and what they need, how they think, and how they operate, the more we get invested in this film in a way that allows us to wonder if we'd do anything differently if we were in Shelly's shoes by the time that we first see her onscreen. At that point, a routine has been somewhat established already – not a good one, but one that would likely keep this cycle of madness going day after day like it's on an endless loop. I'll be honest with ya, I wasn't even sure I was going to like this film based on its synopsis. It says: "A desperate single mother uses her daughter's imagination as a fragile escape from the harsh reality of their struggling life." And truthfully, that's about as informative and accurate as saying your dinner will indeed be arriving on a plate without saying what, where, or when that'll happen. I'm not saying that there isn't a theme in the film that supports the synopsis - there is -, but this line makes it feel like that's the entire plotline and there is so much more to "Make Believe" than that. Based on the write-up, this actually sounded like it was going to be a lot like Lenny Abrahamson's "Room" from 2015, but it really wasn't anything like that at all. We get more of an implied sense of Daisy's imagination than the film pursues, but to be fair, it does come up in a couple of significant ways. Clarke did an amazing job of making even the daylight seem incredibly dangerous. It IS when you think about it from someone like Shelly's perspective. She definitely doesn't have all the answers in life – she barely has enough answers to make it through an average day, and when you consider the fact that she's still responsible for a whole other lifeform as well, you realize that the threats exist everywhere. It's not a matter of the boogeyman coming to haunt your nightmares, no. It's a matter of how your nightmares find you when you're awake in the form of bills, responsibilities, strangers and bad decisions that could potentially turn a life right upside down. All that is way scarier than some dude in a mask if you ask me. Shelly is able to navigate through it fairly competently, or at least she has for quite some time. You can see an unspoken confidence as she makes her way to Debs' place for example; she's not living in a nice neighborhood, but Shelly doesn't even bat an eye. For better or worse, this is the world she knows. Spoiler alert, it's usually the worse end of that scenario.
There is a scene in this film that would scare the living daylights out of parents everywhere. Jacob Anderton plays a guy named Col, who just happens to be at Debs' place when Shelly and Daisy drop by. I'm not going to spoil the scene for you, but suffice it to say, Clarke gets maximum mileage out of it by breaking it up into smaller cuts and uses dim lighting that will terrorize your own imagination as you try to figure out how much danger is really present in this random situation. Kelsey Dee, who plays Debs, and Anderton as her new momentary boyfriend Col…I mean…these two are SCARY for their own reasons. That's when you get this scene from Shelly right after they leave, where you can almost see this pain of realization on her face that suggests if these two were the best friends she has in life, then she's in more trouble than she might have thought at first. Shelly's learned to hustle, though, and she's not at all stupid – there are ways she can choose to make money or get a meal if she needs to, but it really is all about what she's willing to do in order to make that happen. As she meets Dom (Macaulay Cooper) at a park, it's clear that she still has her dignity intact and has some scruples. She might be willing to ask for spare change or even steal if she has to, but there are things that she won't do as well, and she knows precisely where she'll draw that line. Three quarters into this film though, you'll really start to see the desperation take hold, and Shelly will go on to make what I suppose I'd consider to be a fairly disgusting choice by including her daughter in on something shady – but again, I'm coming at this from a very privileged perspective that has no idea what it'd be like to walk a mile in Shelly's shoes. As terrifying as it can be to think about, Clarke leads us all to consider what life would be like if we had to. The finale is absolutely remarkable, and it'll have you wondering if Shelly is completely and totally a villain, or if she might have, in fact, found the way to be the hero of this tragic tale after all. Even after watching "Make Believe" a couple of times, I couldn't tell you for sure. Part of me suspects that Shelly knew exactly what she was doing at the end, largely based on how unfazed she seems to be when the consequences of her actions begin to catch up with her. If the ends justify the means, though, then we have to at least wonder about whether or not she might have actually made the hardest but possibly most responsible choice she's ever made, too. I punched the air out of frustration as I watched "Make Believe" twice to the end…there had to be another way for this story to end, right, Mr. Clarke? Don't get it twisted, it is the PERFECT way to end it, but yeah…so heartbreaking that you just wanna turn your screen off afterwards and call it a night with a heavy sigh. "Make Believe" is extremely vivid and very real from start to finish, and it has rightfully earned four and a half stars out of five from me. |
|
|
More To Check Out.
|
