Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

I saw this one at last year’s AFI Fest in Hollywood, and I’m glad to see it finally getting a release. This is Magnolia Pictures releasing it, so it’s also available on DVD at the same time that it’s launching in theaters. Keep that in mind if you live in a market where something like this doesn’t open theatrically... there’s always Netflix, and it’s worth a look.

Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.

Three or four years ago, I was asked to be on the Short Films Jury for the Chicago International Film Festival, an honor which required me to spend many, many hours watching dozens of shorts in a room at the festival's offices with my co-jurors. It might have been the toughest job I've ever had, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat (actually I did; they asked me back the following year). During that year's judging, one live-action short stood out in my mind as the clear winner, and it ended up taking the top Short Film prize that year, as it had and went on to do at many other festivals around the world. The film was CASHBACK, written and directed by Sean Ellis, who has since been given the much-deserved opportunity to turn his little masterpiece about an insomnia-stricken university student working the overnight shift in a supermarket into this equally funny and insightful UK comedy.

Art student Ben (Sean Biggerstaff) has just lost his girlfriend and finds it impossible to sleep as he mourns this tragic loss. He meets a group of fellow misfits that he calls coworkers, and spends a lot of his time finding ways to make the time go faster. His primary diversion is making time stop so he can look at the world through his artist's eyes and turn customers into living models, which sometimes includes stripping them down. The original CASHBACK short is actually included in the film, so no worries about missing it. In some passive ways, CASHBACK has plot similarities to the god-awful Dane Cook movie EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH, which featured coworkers vying for the affections of a woman that works at the store. In this case, her name is Sharon (Emilia Fox), and her quiet beauty makes Ben believe that maybe he could one day fall asleep again.

The supporting cast of geeks and pranksters keep the film from getting too bogged down in Ben's depressed and/or artsy state. Performers like Shaun Evans, Stuart Goodwin, Michael Dixon and Michael Lambourne keep the proceedings moving and damn funny. But even Ben's maudlin narration is amusing most of the time. Sean Ellis ultimately wants to make us laugh, without making his characters look pathetic or dumb. But he also challenges us to think about why a failed relationship has such a devastating impact on us and the lengths we go to pull our heads out of the mud of depression. CASHBACK is a quality and often sexy first-time piece from a filmmaker I will genuinely be rooting for in the years to come.

Capone