Movie Review - Josiah (Short Film)

Writer-director Kyle Laursen is having his short film play at several film festivals, including the Bogotá Short Film Festival, the Palm Springs International Shortfest, the Raindance Film Festival and the St. Louis International Film Festival. All of those festivals are Academy Award qualifying or Oscar qualifying events. This means that Laursen's film can be considered for Best Live Action Short at the 93rd Academy Awards. That category is always very competitive, given that there are over 110 film festivals on the Oscar-qualifying list. However, Laursen's film stands out because it's about the Hollywood industry and the Academy loves films about that industry, thus it loves films about itself. Racism has also been a topic that Hollywood loves to address. However, this hasn't absolved Hollywood of racism within its ranks. Some criticisms have been how Hollywood depicts stories of African-Americans, why it does so and what kinds of stories it chooses to tell. The opportunities for Black men and women have also been in question. All of this is perhaps the subtext or pretext to Laursen's film.

It's pretext because those criticisms or issues are never spoken in this film. One has to assume a lot of it or not. The film never makes explicit what the essential conflict is or what exactly is going through the head of the protagonist. Luke Forbes (S.W.A.T. and Crown Heights) stars as that protagonist, but, unlike John David Washington in Tenet (2020), Forbes' character gets a name. In fact, he gets two. His official name is Brandon but his nickname is Q. Now, to Forbes' credit, the film doesn't need to be explicit with specific lines of dialogue. Forbes gives a number of facial expressions, which clue the audience to either his annoyance, shock, offense or frustration with the interactions he has as a Black man going into an audition. Laursen's floating and one-take camera makes sure to capture those facial expressions, as well as the facial expressions of all the characters here.

Kevin Dunn (Veep and Samantha Who?) is the exception. It's less about his facial expressions as it is about his waxing poetic or verbal interactions. Dunn plays Jack, the middle-age writer and director who is basically leading the audition. He's the most talkative, as the camera mostly swirls around him, making it obvious that Laursen's film is targeting him as the most problematic. Given the facial expressions aimed toward him, we're certainly led to believe that he's the most problematic person here. Even though he's not the only one here contributing to what becomes a string of microaggressions.

During the audition, the assistant at the production company is Tina, played by Melanie Chandra (Code Black and Brown Nation). She apparently has a problem with the scene that is being used as the audition. This supposes that she didn't read the script beforehand, which is odd because she said she's been there for weeks. It's never directly said, but, it seems as though she has a problem with the use of the N-word in that scene. Now, the project they're auditioning is for television, but, depending on whether it's broadcast or cable and streaming television would change the discussion.

Obviously, the N-word isn't allowed on broadcast TV. It would get bleeped out most likely or cut from the scene before it even made air. Cable or streaming is different, and, in fact plenty of TV shows by Black creators within the past five years and more have used the N-word. The same goes for films whether it was for contemporary or historical works. Even the recent Harriet (2019), which was created by a Black filmmaker, had the N-word in it. There have been whole discussions about Quentin Tarantino's use of it for example. Tina who isn't African-American is triggered by the use of that word when it's not clear why she would. Has she never heard of Tarantino? Once she is triggered, she tries to communicate it and isn't quite successful. Yet, it becomes like an albatross that then gets put around Brandon's neck, which might be the point of this film. It could be about how racial insensitivity, whether perceived or not, are put on Black people whether they want it or not.

However, the back-half of this film would seem to suggest that Brandon does feel aggrieved and again it's not clear why. He admits at the beginning that he had the whole script before walking in the door. It's not as if he didn't know the N-word was going to be used. His being aggrieved could be because he learns that the role does have a slavery aspect, but, again, given the time period in which Jack's script is set, Brandon couldn't be that surprised. Maybe Brandon is sick of slave narratives because maybe he's played a billion of them, which would be valid, but we can't read Brandon's mind, so there's no way to know if that's the case. In the end, he seems to get the role, so he ends up looking salty for getting what he came there for. He looks like a sore winner.

Not Rated but contains language.
Running Time: 19 mins.

Playing at film festivals.