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Cashback
The beginning and finale of a 2006 sexually charged British film called Cashback display endless imagination, style, and filmmaking technique, but a detour around the halfway point takes the viewer out of the unique and initially hard-to-swallow cinematic universe to which we have been invited.
Ben Willis is an aspiring artist who, after a very bitter breakup with his girlfriend, Suzy, develops insomnia, which motivates him to take a job on the night shift at a local supermarket. Ben finds his artistic imagination running wild with the ability to stop time anytime he wants to and makes any adjustments to current circumstance he likes, including his unrequited crush on a fellow employee named Sharon.
Just like the 2018 Jim Cummings film Thunder Road, this film was based on a short film that producer, director, and screenwriter Sean Ellis was granted the opportunity to expand into a feature film a few years later and he ran with it. This film takes a bold and unabashed look at the male libido and how so much of what motivates the male is rooted in sexual worship as well as sexual fantasy. The story begins looking at Ben's childhood, which features a Swedish exchange student who lived at his house and paraded around the house naked. It's not long before we see Ben freeze framing the activity at the supermarket, and allowing his sexual imagination to command his actions and bring us into his own sexual awakenings.
Ellis brings us into a sexually provocative world that includes a rarely seen homage to the female form, filmed with an artistic delicacy that I haven't seen. Unfortunately, just as we begin to become completely enveloped in this erotic fantasy, Ellis decides it's time to introduce us to Ben's co-workers, his boss, and their soccer team, wrenching the viewer out of this endlessly imaginative fantasy he has taken so much time bringing us into, and then abruptly bringing us back to the fantasy world we had just begun to accept using Ben's reunion with Suzy as the conduit, leading to a lovely finale.
Ellis' screenplay has an almost poetic quality, using just enough British slang that we recognize the country of origin, but we know exactly what everything means. The camera work is often breathtaking combining an unnerving use of freeze frame that brings an ethereal quality look to the nude female form that is often breathtaking. Sean Biggerstaff, who appeared in the first three Harry Potter movies as Oliver Wood, is warm and sensitive as Ben, but the real star of this film is Sean Ellis, who definitely is a director to watch.
The beginning and finale of a 2006 sexually charged British film called Cashback display endless imagination, style, and filmmaking technique, but a detour around the halfway point takes the viewer out of the unique and initially hard-to-swallow cinematic universe to which we have been invited.
Ben Willis is an aspiring artist who, after a very bitter breakup with his girlfriend, Suzy, develops insomnia, which motivates him to take a job on the night shift at a local supermarket. Ben finds his artistic imagination running wild with the ability to stop time anytime he wants to and makes any adjustments to current circumstance he likes, including his unrequited crush on a fellow employee named Sharon.
Just like the 2018 Jim Cummings film Thunder Road, this film was based on a short film that producer, director, and screenwriter Sean Ellis was granted the opportunity to expand into a feature film a few years later and he ran with it. This film takes a bold and unabashed look at the male libido and how so much of what motivates the male is rooted in sexual worship as well as sexual fantasy. The story begins looking at Ben's childhood, which features a Swedish exchange student who lived at his house and paraded around the house naked. It's not long before we see Ben freeze framing the activity at the supermarket, and allowing his sexual imagination to command his actions and bring us into his own sexual awakenings.
Ellis brings us into a sexually provocative world that includes a rarely seen homage to the female form, filmed with an artistic delicacy that I haven't seen. Unfortunately, just as we begin to become completely enveloped in this erotic fantasy, Ellis decides it's time to introduce us to Ben's co-workers, his boss, and their soccer team, wrenching the viewer out of this endlessly imaginative fantasy he has taken so much time bringing us into, and then abruptly bringing us back to the fantasy world we had just begun to accept using Ben's reunion with Suzy as the conduit, leading to a lovely finale.
Ellis' screenplay has an almost poetic quality, using just enough British slang that we recognize the country of origin, but we know exactly what everything means. The camera work is often breathtaking combining an unnerving use of freeze frame that brings an ethereal quality look to the nude female form that is often breathtaking. Sean Biggerstaff, who appeared in the first three Harry Potter movies as Oliver Wood, is warm and sensitive as Ben, but the real star of this film is Sean Ellis, who definitely is a director to watch.