Meal Ticket

Wes Andre Goodrich’s Meal Ticket is a 12-minute masterpiece. The audience is flung into the world of a music manager called Saint, whose working life is as complicated as it comes. It gets far more complicated, however, when he is forced to make an impossible decision. This will severely influence his professional life – he'll either jeopardise his career, or have to place his morals to the side. Due to the film’s visual approach, as well as its important moral ambiguity, the audience is reminded of many a great modern movie. I, for one, thought of Steve Jobs for the film’s single-location walk-and-talk setup; Punch-Drunk Love for its gorgeous anamorphic cinematography, working in tandem with the protagonist’s distressed perspective. But most importantly, this picture implements the Safdie brothers' aesthetic that’s become so popular in recent years. You could argue that this look has become overused, but when it’s done well – and used where it’s needed – it's a phenomenal way to convey drama.

To get straight to the point, this is one of the best-shot short films I've seen in years. This is a seismic achievement for director of photography Ben Hardwicke, whose camera manages to flow with such momentum, and such a dynamic sense of actors' behaviour and rhythms, that we, the viewer, get completely sucked into the visceral action on screen. Goodrich as director then allows the commotion of characters entering then exiting to inspire complex blocking, and only add to the sense of claustrophobia we get from these tight corridors and glaring lights. Goodrich must also have impeccable instinct when it comes to timing and pace. The film never stops for a moment, and yet simultaneously retains its ebbs and flows - quiet moments of worry, followed as quickly by the loudest moments of distress. Always disorienting - yet never geographically unsound - we get to really know this enclosed, tight space through the motion and subjective perspective of the camera. It does this so effectively by fluctuating between a variety of methods when it comes to movement: steadicam, handheld, dolly. At one point, it felt as if the camera was on tracks until it spun round and started following characters in a mobile fashion. It's seamless, and tough to figure out how the filmmakers achieved certain moments of sporadic movement and blocking.

Similar to a film like Uncut Gems, much of its effectiveness hangs on the central performance. It’s their perspective which drives the visuals, after all, and their decision-making which drives the story. Actor Siddiq Saunderson uses his charisma and vulnerability as a performer to hook the audience into his psychology. This then allows us to view the narrative events entirely from the character’s point of view; and it becomes all the more impactful when we begin to pull back and question his complicated morality. Outside of the consistently great performances and flawless cinematography, there’s so much more to love about this movie. The production design is grounded in realism – grimy yet colourful. And the sound design is as layered and chaotic as what we see on screen, with moments of muffled silence being incorporated to intensify a moment of indecision. To readers, this is essential viewing. It’s a technical triumph, and one hell of a roller coaster which will get your heart racing.