Skandalouz Short Film Review

★★★

Directed by: #OmarCook

Starring: #AdonisArmstrong, #JessieReeder, #GentelSharrie, #OmarCook

Short Film Review by: Alexandra James

---

Scandalouz begins by introducing our main character Marcus, a highflyer at his law firm and is soon to make junior partner. He is cocky, confident, and egotistical, able to get away with anything. His wife takes care of him and his home, making sure he is loved and appreciated. However, Marcus has his own separate life, and chooses to sleep with a colleague just because he can. His complete lack of empathy and disregard for his wife and the life they built together, feeds into this fantasy which he has conjured that he is practically invincible. However, things begin to slowly crumble as his wife discovers his dirty secret and suddenly his world begins to fall before him.

At the beginning of the scene Marcus, played by Adonis Armstrong, is dressing himself after spending the evening with his co-worker Stacy (Gentle Sharrie) who proceeds to throw herself at Marcus by brushing his ego and putting him on a pedestal, only encouraging his poor behaviour and making him believe he is unstoppable. His wife, Kayla, rings Marcus and asks when he will be home, with a dinner made and a beautiful, well-kept home to return to, one might wonder why Marcus chooses to dabble in infidelity and ignore Kayla’s sweet gestures and love. Marcus is a character who clearly wants to fit the part of a ‘big time lawyer,’ and decides to cheat because it matches that image of a successful and wealthy lawyer, a person that needs to have it all until his greediness comes back to bite him.

It is not long before Kayla discovers her husband’s awful secret, and Marcus is unable to control his wife’s anger. He lashes out and belittles her with cruel language and even violence. Marcus turns to a friend for advice, one who is honest and confirms that Marcus’ actions were completely unjustified. Without giving too much of the story away, it is Kayla who decides to take matters into her own hands and creates a thrilling plot twist which has the audience on the edge of their seat.

Scandalouz is filled with drama and touches upon issues of domestic violence, an extremely serious subject to explore but one which should be discussed openly. Especially for victims who are desperate to find solace that there is hope and help there for those that need it. The acting was somewhat awkward in places and did not always flow well, making it difficult to feel a lot of empathy towards some of the characters. However, the story was engaging and certainly gave us the surprise we never expected. With time, director Omar Cook can experiment with camera angles as well as sound as there was a lack of diverse shots and sometimes the sound did not always complement the scene. However, Scandalouz was entertaining and can be seen as the start of some extremely exciting work from Omar Cook.