The Joy of Six (15) 73 mins ****
A half-dozen shorts care of
distributor Soda’s New British Cinema programme, all diverting, two
outstanding. The narrative-short food groups are amply covered:
twist-in-the-tale jobs (Douglas Hart’s Long
Distance Information has splenetic Peter Mullan forming a surprising
telephonic bond one Christmas), pun-films (Dan Sully’s short, sweet urban
legend The Ellington Kid; Romola
Garai’s straining Scrubber, about a
woman juggling dogging with OCD), zeitgeisty star vehicles (Chris Foggin’s
agreeably cosy Friend Request Pending,
with Judi Dench as a lovelorn silver surfer). The picks are William Jewell’s
teasing, stylish feature-in-waiting Man
in Fear, which conjures a fatalistic universe around paranoiac Luke
Treadaway and no-nonsense copper Tim Healy; and Matthew Holness’s A Gun for George [above], a tremendously
assured, funny-sad portrait of a pulp writer in decline, which envelops great
lines in retro detail worthy of Holness’s beloved Garth Marenghi. A most encouraging selection.
The Joy of Six is touring selected cinemas. Full details can be found here.
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