Bait (2019)

"Martin" (a competent Edward Rowe) is struggling to come to terms with changes in his tiny fishing village that have left him a bit adrift. His brother has decided that more cash can be made if they use their late father's boat for tourist trips and their former family home is now lived in by "Sandra" (Mary Woodvine" and "Tim" (Simon Shepherd) who compound his frustration by being considered interlopers. The photography helps this stand out for about half an hour. It's monochrome and the camera cuts regularly and effectively between characters, beauty shots and even mixes conversations in an innovate style - especially in scenes like the one in the pool room/at the bar. The thing is, though, once we have become exposed to the techniques of auteur Mark Jenkin, the thing takes a series of rather predictably repetitive turns; the characters turn out to be annoyingly undercooked and the paucity of dialogue all contributes to a rather shallow look at small town mentalities. Woodvine and Stacey Guthrie's bar owning "Liz" serve well as fire-break type characters to absorb some of the intensity from the increasingly exasperated "Martin" but this is really a short film that's overstretched. It is an interesting production and at times looks like it might have made for a decent silent film - but I didn't love it.