We live a good portion of our lives in public.
From commuting and day jobs to dinner out with friends, we’re constantly surrounded by strangers with their own struggles, desires, and dramas. They play out right beside us, and most of the time, we’re not even aware of it.
One of the more intimate communal spaces is the public bathroom.
In director Chloe Wicks’ short film CUBICLE, a woman (Charlotte Hamblin) seeks refuge in a bathroom stall to take a pregnancy test. We don’t know how she feels about it, and we don’t have to. It’s enough to know her whole life could change in just sixty seconds.
What she doesn’t know is that it’s about to change regardless. As she sits patiently, a couple enters the restroom and fall clumsily into the next stall. The woman giggles to herself as the sound of sexual moaning rings off the walls. Guess they were too wrapped up to notice they weren’t alone.
But just as things are reaching supreme awkwardness, the stranger’s moans take a decidedly dangerous turn. What the woman thought was a passionate tryst might just be something more frightening.
It takes a lot of skill to tell a good story in just three minutes, and director Chloe Wicks and writer Stefan Kaday should take pride in this excellent short. I was so impressed with the style of this film. It’s shot simply and effectively with lots of close-ups on the main character, which perfectly reflects the cramped environment the main character finds herself in.
A special nod should be given to actress Charlotte Hamblin, whose strong performance proves a great actor doesn’t need even dialogue to convey meaning.
Supremely tense and wickedly clever, CUBICLE combines classic Hitchcockian suspense with a clever twist that is guaranteed to surprise and delight those with darker tastes.
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