Total Performance (2015): Breathtaking & Masterful

Total Performance (2015; Indie Short Subject) - From stage to screen actors put on masks for every performance. Allegory today, perhaps, but the expression comes from theatre of old from the actual use of masks to distinguish characters before an audience. Acting has evolved; actors no longer put on masks, they put on roles. The actor as artist no longer paints a face on a mask, they shape and create a role before our very eyes from a palette filled with shades of range and depth. But what happens when an actor puts on that mask and looks into a mirror, and they know that person looking back at them?

Cori is an actress working for a company with a unique service to offer; they hire out actors to people who want to rehearse real life situations that are uncomfortable. A boss may need to fire someone. A spouse may need to confront their significant other about infidelity. For these and other situations an actor provides the ideal verbal punching bag for someone to build up their confidence or as a form of catharsis. Cori is a good actress providing a good service to her clients, but the next role she has to play might hit hit a little too close to home.

Sean Meehan wrote and directed Total Performance, and hats off to him for a job well done. Great actors can perform great roles, but at the very core of that is having great roles to play, and Meehan delivers with an intelligent script, an obviously creative idea in the first place, and the direction to bring the audience into the story.

What moves this film, and the viewer, are two command caliber performances by Tory Berner and Steven Conroy. They work off of each other naturally. To Meehan's credit again he has used a date night for character development. It's brilliant as what better way to get to know two characters than experiencing them get to know each other. Berner and Conroy ace their roles; it's like the ideal situation, and this is an important foundation for the story and how it plays out.

From the most minor of roles, nothing is wasted. Timothy J. Cox has one scene in this film. Short it may be, but it provides a necessary element of seeing how Cori deals with it, and of course Cox, the master of the understated performance, in playing a boss needing to fire someone has my computer screen feeling his nerves without having to say anything. From opening with an angst filled husband having to confront infidelity, an in-house encounter scene filling the background, to a nervous expression, every moment has a purpose and every performance no matter how short is on key.

Meehan plays the ending of this shrewdly. I at first felt that it was ambiguous. Well, it's really not. It's understated for sure, but it will sink in, as soon as you remember to breathe. When a film can take your breath away...that's masterful.

I give it a full 5 Daggers. I'd give it more, but all I have is 5.

Availability

A really incredible film at just over 17 minutes and you can watch it on Vimeo.

Check out the film's IMDB page.