Two Short Film Reviews: A Friend of Dorothy and Extremist

These are reviews for two short films: A Friend of Dorothy and Extremist. The first is A Friend of Dorothy. It runs 21 minutes.

A FRIEND OF DOROTHY

The euphemism "friend of Dorothy" to mean "gay man" takes the pun route in A Friend of Dorothy. Moving and effective, A Friend of Dorothy tells us a charming little story even if it took one bad turn.

A will reading brings two very different people together. On one side is Scott Woodley (Oscar Lloyd), wealthy white privileged man. On the other is JJ (Alistair Nwachukwu), a poor black man. What ties them together is the late Dorothy Woodley (Miriam Margolyes). JJ was an aspiring footballer who had kicked his ball into Dorothy's garden. Feisty at 87, Dorothy lives alone and is surprised to see someone come up to her door.

JJ helps her open a jar. He also marvels at her extensive library. JJ especially marvels at the various male nudes in the library's gallery. Dorothy senses that JJ secretly loves literature, especially plays. JJ admits that he would much rather be an actor than a footballer. In exchange for weekly visits, JJ can have the run of Dorothy's extensive library collection. It helps that Dorothy and her late husband were patrons of the arts.

Soon, JJ becomes a friend of Dorothy. It is never overtly stated, but he is almost certainly a friend of Dorothy in the more traditional sense of the expression. His flirtish gaze at another man in a corner market suggests as such. JJ is one day surprised to find an obnoxious young white man at Dorothy's door. It is Scott, her grandson. Scott is not horrible per se. He is, however, arrogant, dismissive and condescending towards everyone. Dorothy's lawyer Dickie (Sir Stephen Fry) reveals that Scott's father Peter will get the house. Scott will get 50,000 pounds. JJ will get her entire library of plays. 

He also gets a seemingly strange instruction from Dickie to look at a specific act in a specific play. JJ finds The Inheritance the play that first drew him and Dorothy together. Inside, tucked away is a check for 50,000 and an application to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. There is also a note urging him to apply. 

A Friend of Dorothy plays with the double meaning of the term. Curiously, JJ would not understand, at least initially, that "friend of Dorothy" was a euphemism for "gay" or "homosexual". In A Friend of Dorothy, JJ has no idea who Judy Garland is. It is a bit unclear whether JJ's lack of knowledge is due to his age or background. Him not knowing what The Inheritance is, that is understandable. Him not knowing who Judy Garland is, that is slightly more understandable if perhaps not completely believable. 

Writer/director Lee Knight does a fine job hinting at JJ's sexual orientation without forcing it on the viewer. We see it in how JJ looks at the various nude men painted in the various portraits. We see it in the scene where he and another man throw little smiles at each other. I wonder, though, if having a football (soccer) player turn out to be gay is a bit cliched. I also wonder if said football player, who is probably gay, wanting to be an actor is also a bit cliched. Is the suggestion that only gay men want to be actors?

A Friend of Dorothy is well-acted by just about everyone. Miriam Margolyes is delightful as the sensible Dorothy. She shows a zest for life that is not diminished by advancing age. Dorothy is not enthusiastic about life due to the various infirmities she faces. She also has to live with how her family is not all that interested in her. Her relationship with JJ, however, gives her a new albeit brief revival. Margolyes plays this quite well.

Nwachukwu is not as strong as JJ. I put that down to the character. He is meant to be a bit more hesitant. He especially would find himself a bit perplexed by this white world of art and bitchy relations. We do not learn anything about his background. The viewer can only guess that his family pressured him to pursue football rather than acting. That speculation goes towards whether his family would be homophobic. In his small part, Stephen Fry is pleasant as Dickie, the solicitor who follows Dorothy's instructions to the letter.

The worst aspect of A Friend of Dorothy is Oscar Lloyd's Scott. It is not that Lloyd gave a bad performance. It is that, again, it is a cliché. I would have thought it better if Scott weren't such a bitchy little twit. He could have been more clueless but caring over his grandmother. Having him be civil but curt towards her and JJ was, I think, a mistake. It forces the viewer towards being sympathetic towards people whom you already are sympathetic to. One does not need to hammer down on what awful people everyone except Dorothy and JJ are to get the point across.

A Friend of Dorothy also has a nice score from Stuart Hancock, elevating the material. Overall, A Friend of Dorothy is pleasant, charming and with a positive message. "One should never apologize for an interest in literature", Dorothy tells JJ after finding him reading one of the plays. Good performances and an engaging story will have everyone be a friend of Dorothy.

DECISION: B-

EXTREMIST

The second short film is Extremist. It runs 18 minutes and is in Russian.

Extremist is based on a true story. As such, it is a bit disappointing to find that Extremist ended up making one less sympathetic to the main character.

Sasha Skochilenko (Viktoria Miroshnichenko) is living in an apartment with her lover Sonya (Tina Dalakisvilli). Their landlady Galina (Lilian Malkina) thinks of them as good girls who keep to themselves and are always polite and respectful. 

In reality, both Sasha & Sonya and Galina live in alternate universes. Sasha and Sonya are immersed in anti-Putin activities. They gather friends in the woods to create anti-war pictures. Galina accepts the Putin propaganda as fact. Just before Sasha & Sonya go on their woodland excursion, Sasha makes a quick visit to a grocery store. Without telling Sonya, Sasha secretly replaces not Folger's crystals but price stickers with little notes detailing the truth about the Ukraine war.

Galina is startled when she sees the stickers while grocery shopping. Not seeing the actual prices on her groceries is already a bit of a surprise. Having little statements of Russians bombing hospitals startles her. She immediately does her patriotic duty and contacts the police about this propaganda on Aisle 5. The police, who despite Sasha's beliefs are not idiots, quickly find the naughty girl. Galina is startled to find both of her good girls arrested. 

Soon, Sasha sees the seriousness of her actions. She faces eight years in prison for her stunt. Sonya was quickly dismissed as it is established that she knew nothing of this political act. Galina at first cannot believe that Sasha could be some kind of subversive. At worst, Galina thinks that it was a dumb and foolish prank. However, being a good and patriotic Russian, she accepts that Sasha is a danger to Mother Russia. At Sasha's trial, Galina calmly but firmly denounces Sasha for her actions. The verdict is never in doubt. However, we get a little joke to close Extremist, complete with confetti. 

The problem that I had with Extremist is that the film ends up having the opposite effect that director and cowriter Aleksandr Molochnikov intended. We are, I figure, meant to sympathize with Sasha. She is speaking truth to power, albeit in the most innocuous manner. She is on the right side of history. She is even a lesbian, a dangerous thing to be in Russia right now.

However, Sasha is also something of a bossy figure. She willingly puts her lover Sonya in danger. She does not seem to take seriously how dangerous her actions are. She seems, rather, more upset about the consequences to herself than about what could have happened to Sonya.

Try as I might, and try as Extremist might, I found Sasha unlikeable. I did not want to see her harmed. I also, however, could not shake off the idea that she thought the stunt would not put others at risk. I grew more concerned for Sonya than for Sasha. I kept thinking about what if the police did not believe that Sonya was also part of this act of political subversion. 

It is not that I am opposed to fighting against dictatorships. It is rather than Sasha appeared uninterested in how her actions might have affected her lover. Again and again, I thought less about Sasha and her plight than I did about both Sonya and Galina.

I started to wonder if Extremist might have done better if it had focused on Galina instead of Sasha. Galina, excellently acted by Liliyan Malkina, is reflective of the average Russian. She is at heart a good person. She loves her country. She also knows Sasha and Sonya to be good people. Galina accepts what she sees as fact for good or bad. She believes the endless propaganda of Russian state television without giving it much thought.

She also thinks well of her tenants. When the police come to arrest them, she is absolutely shocked. She yells at the police that they must have the wrong people. If memory serves right, she tells them either at her arrest or at the police station that they are decent girls. To prove her point, she tells them that they do not even bring men up to their apartment. 

Galina is so traditional that she cannot conceive of the concept of lesbianism. She thinks Sasha and Sonya are respectable single women who do not indulge in fast living. I do not think that Extremist ever firmly established that Galina figured out that Sasha and Sonya were more than just friends. It does establish that when confronted with proof of Sasha's actions, she accepts what she is told without question. Seeing her condemn the prisoner for being anti-Russian is sad given that Galina is a good person. There is no malice in her actions. Instead, it is the endless lies that she has been fed as truth that led her to this wrong conclusion.  

I think Extremist might have done better to shift the focus to Galina's point of view versus attempting to make Sasha a martyr. Molochnikov and his cowriter Mikhail Durnenkov were, I figure, attempting to draw attention to the real-life case of Aleksandra Skochilenko. However, I think they ended up making a short film that did her and those like her a disservice. 

It does not help that the film ends on an extremely jokey way. Extremist ends with the judge's head exploding into a shower of confetti. Sonya and Sasha can look at each other almost in delight at the absurdity of it all. The ending fell flat to me. Adding a postscript where we are told of the extreme and paranoid laws that have people arrested for such trivialities is a poor counterpoint to confetti-exploding judges.  

Stories like those of Sonya need to be told. There is a strong scene where Sonya is forced to strip. The comments directed against her by the police are also troubling. "I wouldn't rape you. Too weird," she is told by a female cop. However, I found Extremist to be slightly smug in its telling. It seems a terrible shame given the importance of the subject. 

DECISION: D+