Meera Menon's The Press Conference is part of Refiner 29's Shatterbox anthology, a grouping of films written and directed by women in an effort to give some screen time and attention to women directors who are way too underrepresented in cinema. I like Meera Menon's debut feature, the great road trip/political comedy Farah Goes Bang, but this short falls, well, short. Perhaps working in short form just isn't Menon's medium.
The Press Conference is about, you guessed it, a press conference. Or rather mostly the moments just before it when a disgraced Governor Moore is preparing the statement she will make to the press after a sexual affair she had with an intern has come to light. At her side is an aide (played by Kiran Deol, who also appeared in Farah Goes Bang). They are also later joined by the Governor's doctor husband who is unimpressed both with the fact that his wife was having an affair and that he has to stand dutifully by her side while she admits she cuckolded him.
None of this is bad per se, it's just that it all feels like maybe six or so minutes taken out of The Good Wife or another political drama. And for some reason the setting for this is a church? I don't know, none of that really made sense to me, nor did the "twist" which arrives about two thirds through the short. What really makes the short marginally interesting is that everything up till the press conference is a single shot, making it well choreographed and interesting from a technical point of view even as the script slouches toward mediocrity.
It's by no means terrible, it just didn't feel strong enough to stand up as a short on its own.
The Press Conference is about, you guessed it, a press conference. Or rather mostly the moments just before it when a disgraced Governor Moore is preparing the statement she will make to the press after a sexual affair she had with an intern has come to light. At her side is an aide (played by Kiran Deol, who also appeared in Farah Goes Bang). They are also later joined by the Governor's doctor husband who is unimpressed both with the fact that his wife was having an affair and that he has to stand dutifully by her side while she admits she cuckolded him.
None of this is bad per se, it's just that it all feels like maybe six or so minutes taken out of The Good Wife or another political drama. And for some reason the setting for this is a church? I don't know, none of that really made sense to me, nor did the "twist" which arrives about two thirds through the short. What really makes the short marginally interesting is that everything up till the press conference is a single shot, making it well choreographed and interesting from a technical point of view even as the script slouches toward mediocrity.
It's by no means terrible, it just didn't feel strong enough to stand up as a short on its own.
