Fitting Tribute, A (2007)
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
Impressive short film about a veteran reporter (Sally Bretton) who tries to teach the ropes to a new guy (Thomas Nelstrop) just learning the trade. The woman tries to educate him on the appropriate way to knock on the door of a grieving person and ask them for an interview. Today's subject is a mother (April Nicholson) who has just lost her son the night before in a car wreck but to the young reporters shock she invites him in before even telling her what his visit is about. A FITTING TRIBUTE is the second film I've seen from director Daniel Cormack and both times I've been impressed with how professional looking the films have been. I come across a lot of shorts each years and it's fairly rare to see such a professional piece but there's no question that the film offers up a lot of great moments and a story that could have been laughable had it not been handled in the correct way. This is the type of film that has a very large set-up and if the eventual payoff doesn't work then you feel cheated. The first ten-minutes of this film is almost broken into two parts. The first deals with the fast-talking woman trying to explain the proper way to do the job. The next portion of the film takes a rather black comedy approach as the mother is more than willing to "help" this young man who showed up at her door. This is where you start to wonder what's going to happen and the eventual pay-off is quite touching and works extremely well. A lot of films like this let the build-up go on for so long that the viewer eventually loses interest and doesn't care what happens but director Cormack nicely paces everything and in the end is works well. The three lead performances are all very good, the cinematography is nice and I also found the editing to be quite good. A FITTING TRIBUTE has been labeled as something you'd see in a Twilight Zone episode, which is probably a fair comparison and it's certainly worth checking out.