Streaming Shuffle
This has noble intentions, and I'm furious about the entirety of its execution.
“The Callers” is a bullshit film about something beautiful. It wants to use the latter to excuse the former, and I’m not having it.
I don’t usually write negative reviews of short films, because it feels cruel. It’s hard enough for short works to attract an audience, even when they wind up curated for a Criterion Channel collection; spotlighting them just to shoot them down feels like shining deer.
But “The Callers” is egregious. Rarely has such a self-consciously worthy film failed so thoroughly at the bare minimum requirements of meaning and watchability.
Which is not to say it looks bad, because God forbid this 20-minute exploration of the (second-)oldest queer hotline in the United Kingdom have grain or texture or even asymmetrical faces with spots. What it has instead is an anodyne gloss, and lots of it. Everything here is shot like the unholy lovechild of a pharmaceutical ad and a reenactment from The Jinx, and the images are chosen with a brain-numbing literalism that battens onto the script like a vampire. Voiceovers that should be affecting, that tell the story of gay men during the AIDS crisis calling Switchboard in their last moments just to hear a friendly voice, are drained into lifelessness by the insistence of showing an overturned bottle of pills and an abandoned telephone receiver on a bed. Yes, I got it. I have ears.
We hear about a woman in an ill-fated throuple making a covert call from her garden shed, and we see … a woman making a call from her garden shed. I’m surprised two silhouettes weren’t fondling each other up against the glass. It’s like the worst kind of film noir, except in reverse: you don’t need to show me exactly what you’re telling me.
And because this is full of reenactments—and reenactments of one-sided memories of (presumably) anonymous conversations, no less—we can rarely even get a straight-on shot of someone’s face, not to protect a real person’s privacy but to create the illusion of it. The result is that the people in the story—the entire reason for the story—become cutesy voids of identity, blank slates rather than characters. A stick figure can be human and shabby and funny and moving; a mostly faceless body bogged down in molasses-thick inaction might as well be a mannequin. These semi-faceless actors are props in a world of stylized props (oh, how “The Callers” loves its rotary phones and cords). The overall impression is of artificiality, not craft, warmth, or truth.
But that’s “The Callers” all over, because while some of this is real, huge whacks of it apparently aren’t, and the film has no interest in telling you which is which. This can work in narrative fiction, where the documentary segments can add verisimilitude to what is clearly meant to work as a story; this can work in, say, My Winnipeg, where what’s being documented is, to some extent, an emotional state. “The Callers” feels like it exists to tell us about years of the LGBTQIA community saving itself—how Switchboard brought compassion and expertise to everything from abusive relationships to the need to find a good local leather bar—and that’s why I was excited to watch it. But who knows what stories here are real?
The final screen threads a weird needle in admitting how some of the film’s scenes came about, but it reads less like “anonymized accounts” and more like “tried to keep our inventions reasonably consistent with reality.”1 I’m fine with the first, but I find the second infuriating. It feels like an insult to the people who poured years of their lives into taking these calls to make a film that has to invent their deeds to praise them. It’s an insult to everyone who called in: your pain wasn’t cool enough. It also makes this utterly useless as a political document: you can’t defend these support lines, which badly need defending, with a movie that’s apparently willing to make things up if they sound good.
What is the fucking point of any of this? Who is it for? It has no art; it has no moral purpose; it has no utilitarian function. It’s not even in the right medium! It’s about strangers talking to unseen strangers, and its substance is a collection of anecdotal testimony read aloud over garbage visuals: how is this not audio-only? (Ideally with less sonorously earnest delivery.)
The best bit here is the explanation of the support line’s name: “The word ‘switchboard’ in itself means a connector, doesn’t it? … People call up Switchboard, and hopefully we can connect them to the person they really want to become or who they really are.” It’s essayistic, so for once it doesn’t matter if it came from a volunteer or a screenwriter, and it captures everything the film intends to: queer need, queer community, queer hope. It matters.
I would love a documentary about Switchboard. It’s a shame I can’t count this.
“The Callers” is streaming on the Criterion Channel. You can donate to Switchboard at their website.
About the writer
Lauren James
Lauren James is a writer who wears many different hats (and pen names). She lives in Connecticut with her wife and two cats.
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Anthologized
Dan Duryea gets a shave and a second chance.
Anthologized
A little slice of American folklore that feels like it's been here all along.
Streaming Shuffle
You make your royal bed, and you lie in it.
Anthologized
Alone in vast space and timeless infinity: one man in a ghost town.
Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
Justified, Season Four, Episode Ten, “Get Drew”
This show is so cool. I compared it to The X-Files in terms of mythology vs episodic plotting, and this would be a very big mythology moment – even comparable to Babylon 5, come to think of it. The idea that the Crowder name was built off of a guy literally parachuting into town with a lot of money, giving Bo Crowder a huge leg up over all the other criminals. That’s kind of America in a nutshell, isn’t it? You guys don’t take care of each other – not on any institutional level – so you have to rely on money literally falling from the sky. It’s also being rich in a nutshell, where it comes from receiving money and then not spending all of it.
I’m also struck by how Drew/Shelby recognises the game is over and is more about trying to do as much as he can with the limited time he has left, even when what that means changes very quickly. A lot of the time, religious behaviour confuses me; if the present moment is temporary and almost meaningless in the face of one’s afterlife, why bother caring about the material conditions? (I’m also sometimes baffled by my fellow atheists in the reverse) D/S lives out a more sensible version of that, where he’s less concerned about material pleasures to himself and more about doing long-term good.
Biggest Laugh: “That’s some badass shit!” / “It’s pretty badass.” This was even funnier, given that Grant uses it as a reaction gif frequently, to find out it was actually the climax of a Tastes Like Piss speech (“Drives around with you for three days, while you’re looking for him–”).
Biggest Non-Art Laugh: “I hope they broke his cell phone in half before they let him go!” / “I think you’re the only person who does stuff like that.”
Top Ownage: Boyd bringing a drill bit down on that guy.
“First, we’re gonna acknowledge that this guy is awesome!” “What?” It’s not just Art’s excited delivery, it’s the weariest reply you’ve ever heard.
First episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and goddamn is this good. My friend who is more obsessed with the whole ASOIAF mythos than I am described the difference between this and Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon as “On those shows, the poor are the other, and here the nobles are the other” which is really apt. The show almost literally shits on the familiar Game of Thrones theme, instead using a score of Anglo folk of the kind Dunk might enjoy. Then when the very tall, good-hearted Dunk enters the tourney grounds, he’s immediately in a world where aristocrat assholes try to fight him or simply don’t give a fuck about his credentials. (Lyonel Baratheon briefly offers good advice and then is too drunk to offer any more to him.) Peter Caffey is such a terrific lead for a TV show too, with a sweet and open face that is impossible to dislike, and at the end this hedge knight’s got a squire. Can’t wait to see what he does next.
Notes: Daniel Ings brings Jermaine Clement energy to Lyonel, The Laughing Storm. Duncan cannot get through these tower doors without hitting his head and to quote Ed Wood, “Lobo would have to face this problem every day.” Being tall in the Middle Ages would seemingly be an advantage sometimes and also really, really suck. Everyone is short so no structures are built for your size. The sex workers making a direct comparison between themselves and knights is great – gotta protect your body! They feel more like, y’know, workers than the ludicrously hot women to be abused on Game of Thrones. Flashbacks suggest Duncan’s mentor sucked more than Duncan thinks. Duncan generally embodies what people would have wanted out of chivalry, which is to do good and protect weaker humans from threats.
I need to watch this. I was very charmed by the first novella when I read it lo these many years ago, and this sounds like it really captures Dunk.
I haven’t read them but whoever cast Caffey deserves an award. What a relief as well to watch a show in this universe where I didn’t feel bad at the end of the episode.
“Flashbacks suggest Duncan’s mentor sucked more than Duncan thinks”
Thirty-seven?!?!
“My master sucked thirty-seven knights!” “In a row?”
Primal, “The Dead Cast No Shadow”
A slightly weaker episode, if only because we unavoidably–and understandably–spend so much time hitting the same couple of beats before hitting the adventure of the week: Spear’s reintegration (if possible) has to take time, and his physical deterioration has to make it more urgent and in some ways less likely all at once (every easily detached limb is a reminder that he’s dead). After spending several episodes following Spear’s trudge towards his memory of Fang, it hurts to see Fang growling at him here–and not even recognizing the fundamental Spearness of him when he responds, characteristically, with wild, emphatic yells back. Mira, obviously, is the one who has enough civilization in here to overlook the, well, primal distaste for the living dead: she can decide he’s still in there, be moved by the signs of it (that great rescue sequence!), and patch him up.
Best emotional beat is absolutely Fang’s kids cuddling with Spear. Lovely.
Inside No. 9, “Dead Line”
2018 Halloween special, where the premise is that it’s a live episode–about an old man (Pemberton) who finds a dead woman’s phone, much to the quiet consternation of the local vicar (Shearsmith), who probably killed her–that gets interrupted by a series of technical glitches, leading to a repeat of “A Quiet Night In,” which ghosts intrude on, and then we cut back to the studio, where Pemberton and Shearsmith are playing themselves (I’ll call their “characters” Steve and Reece, in this context) dealing with the ups and downs of it all as the evening slides inexorably into Ghostwatch and Poltergeist territory. Some fun scares here and a great use of external footage, like news coverage of the Granada Studios fire, but my favorite bit is actually just hanging out with Reece and Steve backstage, where you get some humor, emotional texture, and nice nods to their real-life friendship.
Love Fang’s kids so much.
Miss Marple, “Pocketful of Rye” – A fairly obnoxious tycoon is poisoned. The only clues are that someone fed him the toxic sap of a yew tree and that there were grains of rye in his pocket. The media wonders if a fertility cult killed him, but the police are more focused on his family and servants, especially his much younger, adulterous wife. Only she is genuinely upset, and then he’s found poisoned too! In the parlor! From her living room in St. Mary Mead, Miss Marple – somewhat interested in the case not just as an amateur sleuth but as the former employee of a maid at the scene of the crime- sees a pattern. Nothing out of the ordinary for one of these, enlivened by the two cops being keenly aware of the class difference between them and the victims. A few familiar faces here: Annette Badland, most recently seen on Midsomer Murders and Ted Lasso. Timothy West, later of EastEnders as the first victim; versatile character actor Tom Wilkinson as the inspector in charge of the investigation; and Peter Davison a few years after he left the TARDIS.
Frasier, “The Ring Cycle” – The tenth season begins with Niles and Daphne eloping in Reno, only when they get back they can’t bear to tell Martin and Frasier what they missed. And then when Daphne’s mom misses the “marriage” at the courthouse” they have to fake it again. Some very funny moments even though there is a needless multiplication of entities. And also by Martin, when the truth comes out entirely, telling them to just go and have their honeymoon. Sentiment trumps wackiness. Also for some reason they run into Daphne’s ex Donny at the courthouse, and that adds nothing.
Sorcerer – 4k restoration. Haven’t seen this in about 15 years or so and knew it was the kind of film that would benefit hugely from a big-screen viewing, which indeed proved to be the case! I admire the restraint with which the Tangerine Dream score is used (I’d have slathered it all over every scene, ruining the movie) and there was a lot more setup than I remembered – I distinctly recall thinking that I preferred The Wages of Fear because it let us know the characters a lot more before sending them to their doom but there is a good amount of background here and it’s happy to build an atmosphere before the engines kick in. The big “preparing the trucks” montage and the very quiet “blowing up the tree” section are highlights but all of this is great, I think it’s edged ahead of the 50s version for me now although they’re both fucking great.
The bridge sequence overshadows everything, and not without cause, but the tree section is fan fucking tastic. The bridge is dangerous and tense action, these guys are not fools but they are in a real tight spot and have to hope for the best, the tree is pure process porn — here is the obstacle, here is how they solve it. And hell yeah watching this on the big screen, it should be aired yearly like Jaws.
I was hyped to see the bridge sequence all big and loud and it definitely delivered but the tree stuff is just so damn satisfying, Scheider’s plan of attacking the forest with machetes is hilariously pathetic and then the explosives expert just turns up and calmly gets the job done in glorious Rube Goldberg fashion, hell yeah.
Twenty minutes?! I’ve listened to a diverse group of short film festival directors, and one thing they consistently say is a short shouldn’t go over ten minutes and ideally come in under seven. Twenty minutes is bullshit. It’s fucking unprofessional.
Further thought: you go over ten minutes, and that’s the point where you go to other short film directors to package them together as an anthology film.
I like this — that way it’s a collection of similar-length pieces. I’m not opposed to 20 minutes or so in all cases but it really is a length of half measures — a feature film, even a bad one, gives you pieces to build off of in your reaction and the time to do so, something like this that sucks gives you a lot of suck and no time to work it into something better.
I’ll never understand why we don’t get more of those.
Snap take — because they need (or are assumed to need) a wrap-around/theme. Which usually has a certain hoariness to it, which can be really good (Creepshow) but may also suck (VHS 99 comes to mind), especially if it’s extended to any real length. Something to not just link the shorts but act as marketing material.
I love that this is the one part of all of it that I, a confirmed fan on anthology shows with half-hour episodes, had zero problem with; truly, the ire of this particular work keeps on giving. (To be fair, my favorite standalone half-hour or one-hour anthology episodes have narrative and are not just a series of anecdotes, some fabricated and some not.)
Hmm I get this logic when programming a block of shorts but if I’m sitting down to a standalone short film or seeing one paired up with a feature then I’m very happy for it to be 10-25 minutes or whatever suits the story being told! I like the passion though.
Seeing one paired with a feature? Are you also watching these with your sassy robot friends?
What I get up to with my sassy robot friends is MY business.
“Voiceovers that should be affecting, that tell the story of gay men during the AIDS crisis calling Switchboard in their last moments just to hear a friendly voice, are drained into lifelessness by the insistence of showing an overturned bottle of pills and an abandoned telephone receiver on a bed.”
As someone who is increasingly of the opinion that synced sound ruined movies (Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague makes a genial case that rejecting it leads to innovation), this is infuriating. A lot of films follow the need (“need”) to align the visual with its corresponding sound and this becomes a narrow stricture, but still follows a clear if simple relationship. But if your primary focus is the sound (and especially talking), then you have so many more options for visuals, you can put anything up there to counter or augment or boost the sound and instead it’s always Behind The Music cliches like this. Bah!
This! I think one of the reasons it feels so deadening is that it’s getting out ahead of your imagination in an obnoxious way, like it’s creating what it thinks you’d be seeing in your head based on what you’re listening to–but it’s so simultaneously vague and on-the-nose that it doesn’t give me anything more than that, it just usurps my own ability to picture anything.