User Reviews

"The Departure" is a British live action short film from 2014, so not particularly new this one anymore, but also not really old. It runs for comfortably udner 20 minutes, so not even sitcom episode length, and the director is the woman you see on the photo here as well: Gillian Anderson. Of course, most people will know her from her career-defining mystery series that got continued unexpectedly not too long ago, but here she steps in a different direction genre-wise. And it is also a truly rare occasion that she is in charge of the direction. However, the camera is static on one place from beginning to end and you see Anderson also almost from beginning to end, so it may not have been the most challenging director job. I am honestly a bit surprised this one here has such a high rating on imdb. The writer is Andrew O'Hagan and I am not familiar with him gotta admit. Looking at his body of work, I am certainly not the only one. So yeah, what is getting this one watched is probably in addition to the still fairly famous director and lead actress the connection to a truly famous play that turned into a movie many decades ago and this movie is still considered by many among the most defining black-and-white films out there. Of course, I am talking about "A Streetcar named Desire" and Anderson acted in this one as well on another occasion, so it kinda makes sense that here she stars in this little prequel. The inclusion as director still surprises me a bit, but yeah, then again she only basically put a camera in one placing. Editing is also not necessary. It is nothing most people with no filmmaking background at all couldn't have done. It's all about the performance. The one at the center of it all. There are more cast members listed here than you would expect, but it's never really about anything or anybody as we witness the action inside a room and what happens before Blanche DuBois leaves to see her sister. All in all, I would not call the outcome here a failure, but it's also not even close to good enough for a positive recommendation. The one thing it did achieve is that I feel a bit of an urge now to watch "A Streetcar named Desire", but the old version of course, the one starring Brando and others, not the Anderson version. This one here gets a thumbs-down from me. Skip the watch.