directed by:
Jack McLoughlin written by: Jack McLoughlin genre: Drama, Comedy |
They say you can never go home again, but look how much fun it seems like it would be if you were the kind of icon that actor Timothy Markus McGraw turned out to be! He's agreed to return to his hometown to do a "Q&A" session - right there on the stage where he first started long ago, marking that full circle type of journey many of us dream about but rarely achieve. You can see from the host's enthusiasm and the crowd's bustle that Timothy is a revered and likable talent.
After you get an initial listing of credits from his resume and an introduction to both Timothy & casting director Harold Sloane, you'd actually be surprised by the cleverness and craft that Writer/Director Jack McLoughlin takes with this short film of less than twenty minutes. That is to say, you'll find Jack's approach to "Q&A" highly compelling because it's very smartly thought out. At the start, you'll feel like you're watching a very straightforward type of "Q&A" that's as friendly and welcoming as you know most of them to be typically, and rather than rush to move things along, Jack expertly lets you experience that, almost as if he's daring you to assume this short film will be "normal." From the very moment you get to the first potential question to be asked as we're introduced to Ricky Wilson, who used to attend the same acting class as Timothy long ago, you can feel that "Q&A" is about to twist and contort itself into something much different than the opening quarter of the film would have you assume. A noticeable tension invades the room…an uncertainty that is more than happy to provide you with a pit in your stomach, leading to a sinking feeling that it will not all be fun and games here for Timothy. Whereas actors are often safe in their bubble of secured press members and hired bodyguards, something about being on the open stage feels much more dangerous after we meet Ricky. He clearly has some kind of bone to pick, not just with Timothy but also with Harold sitting beside him. Now, I don't want to be the bearer of too many spoilers here, so let's simply say that this plotline gets way, way more extreme than you'd have thought it would within its first five minutes - and somewhere before it reaches the end of its first half, confirms that potential danger we were feeling is a whole lot more real than we thought. Ricky becomes unhinged in his attempt to ask his questions, mired in a myriad of personal experiences that he's never gotten over, and he begins to shout at the top of his lungs as his temper flares – you can practically feel the heat of the moment through your screen as you watch this man descend into a kind of madness that there's really no way to come back from. A public breakdown in full view, Ricky's experience and grievances are not unlike what so many out there would likely have gone through as they search for work within the entertainment industry, so the question kind of becomes, is Wilson deserving of our sympathy, or is he way the heck out of line and/or lacking the skills to process information in the ways that the rest of us can? The situation continues to escalate in front of a live audience, and things become violent. For what's billed as a Dark Comedy-Drama, we're quickly heading into much more of one side of that label than the other. In fact, I'm not even certain Drama fully covers how I feel about what I'm watching – Ricky is so viciously unstable, he's practically nuclear – and I'd be lying to you by omission if I didn't say I was pretty terrified to watch this! I get it though… it's not a Horror film…but " Q&A" is a whole lot scarier than you'd think it would be.
Essentially, the "Q&A" goes as far off the rails as you could possibly imagine and has been hijacked by one man trying to make a point. Ricky feels voiceless, looked over, and continually cast aside rather than cast in the movies and shows he once dreamed of being a part of. "Q&A" is fully loaded with commentary on the concepts of celebrity and has no qualms about diving into aspects like psychology, fear, stress, and, perhaps more accurately, the struggle to find some meaning in life. We all have goals and dreams – we can agree on that, right? "You don't lose parts to people, you just don't get 'em," says Timothy as he's talking to Ricky. Ask yourself how YOU feel about that. Do you think that's the case? Are we in full control of our own destiny, or not? If we put the work in, does that automatically lead to success - every single time? Or do you think there's an existing framework and system that determines who gets to go on to do the things they want to do most in life, and the rest of us get to be the supporting cast of characters that man the machines, ring you through at the counter at the grocery store, and drive your Uber car so that the anointed can get to their next gig? There's plenty to think about and consider in this script that McLoughlin has written so cleverly. A lot of what you'll ponder over is right there onscreen and in front of you, but a lot of what's implied can be turned around internally as we examine our own lives and wonder how much closer we are to being a Ricky than a Tim. At the end of a sports game, where a single point separates the two teams, it's not the final goal that determines the difference. When you're given an opportunity in life, you're not instantly going to go on & knock everything else you'll ever go on to do out of the park afterwards. Every moment counts for something, and you'll see Timothy desperately trying to communicate this to Ricky as "Q&A" plays on. Most crucially, Timothy goes on to articulate that just because you might gain something awesome in life, doesn't mean you don't lose something in the process. Bonafide celebrities will try to explain this all the time…how life in the public eye equates to a loss of privacy – that kind of thing. It's clearly true, and regardless of whether or not it's something they 'signed up for' – it can still be quite tragic and validly traumatic. McLoughlin deserves real credit for how well this script translates to us. Okay, down to brass taxes. Don't let the way things are labelled fool you. If this is at all to be judged for its comedic aspects, I laughed about twice. Maybe chuckled once towards the beginning and out loud at the very end as the final twist was revealed, which is remarkably brilliant. The acting is fantastic – I loved Matthew Mora Hegarty as Tim, Kevin Harvey was great as Harold, and Bobby Schofield as Ricky felt, ironically, like a better casting choice could never have been made for that part. To a lesser extent, the rest of the small cast involved all held their own, but admittedly, their roles in this short film were not major game-changers. Where "Q&A" succeeds most notably is in the writing, and we've got Jack McLoughlin to thank for that. I think the guy is a genuine superstar based on what I've seen here, and I cannot express just how awesome the ending of "Q&A" was to confirm that for me. I enjoyed this film from the moment it started and loved how it switched gears about a quarter of the way into it after expertly letting our expectations build in a different direction. I was impressed by how it maintained its level of tension, and I am still in awe by the wry delivery of its ending & how authentically clever everything came together in its finale. The closest I ever came to wondering if there was something to be improved - was whether or not the crowd in front of the stage might have reacted differently at times, but honestly, who's to say? A situation like this could definitely go exactly as McLoughlin has designed it to. In any event, I thought "Q&A" was utterly fantastic, and it gets a stellar 4.5/5 stars from me. |
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