User Reviews

Breaking the fourth wall is often a considerable risk when it comes to film. It can all too easily alienate the audience and jeopardise the final product, notwithstanding how good the story is. Yet, after viewing a short film named Textual Relationship, it's clear that without this contentious technique, a charmingly offbeat piece such as this would lose much of its visceral impact.

Adapted from a play written by Tom Glover, the narrative centres on two, seemingly love-struck characters known only to the audience as Uniquetalent_33 (Sarah Langrish-Smith) and DarkDemon92 (David Frias- Robles). The decision to obscure their real identities in favour of their chosen online pseudonyms is a creative one as far as the subject matter goes; it highlights how artificial and depersonalised the world of social media can be. Sure enough, the first we see of our budding protagonists are their video profiles for a dating site (aptly named 'textual.com') they're both members of. From this point onwards, the almost breathless pace of the story means that we are only given brief glimpses of their communications with one another as they go about their daily routines– it is telling that very few of these scenes do not have some kind of digital device present.

Another thing these scenes have in common is the unassailable social barrier that divides these characters, even when they are together on screen. This is where the Syd Heather's direction really comes into its own; Textual Relationship is shot in such a way that stresses the complete lack of emotional connection between Uniquetalent_33 and Darkdemon92, with a segment featuring adjoining bathrooms being a particular stand-out in this regard. In fact, the narrative seems to go out of its way to suggest that the duo is content enough with the virtual nature of their relationship – at least initially. While the use of animation (in the form of visual cues) does at times threaten to overwhelm the viewer with information, it is for the most part used sparingly enough to be a fitting representation of their relationship as opposed to a recurring nuisance that adds nothing to the story.

Given the somewhat melancholy subject matter of the piece, the performances of Langrish-Smith and Frias-Robles are essential in conveying the comedic aspect of the writing, and they do this with much flair (there is a line about a router being switched off that particularly tickled me). Similarly Richard D. Taylor's whimsical soundtrack adds to the bitter-sweet tone of the story without taking away from the gravity of its message. While it can be argued that the film's short running time disallows much room for developing our protagonists, we cannot help but root for them, simply because they face a turbulent situation many of us have no doubt encountered at some time in our lives. As a result this has little impact on the overall structure, since what they symbolise outweighs any stumbling blocks its short running time entails.

At one stage, the line 'we never say anything' is exasperatingly uttered by one of the characters – this perfectly encapsulates what Textual Relationship is all about. It is a superb example of how a short film can tell a compelling story without resorting to heavy handed antics in its execution. Uniquetalent_33 and DarkDemon92's heartfelt, yet sharp-witted monologues are handled in such a way that ensures we can sympathise with them without having our suspension of disbelief compromised. In turn, the meaningless nature of their face to face conversations means that social media's shortcomings are systematically bought into the foreground, until there is little doubt over its ineffectualness when it comes to knowing someone on more than a superficial level.