‘Suzie’: Short film plays long game on way to Oscars

Chris Overton and his wife Rachel Shenton won the Best Live Action Short Oscar in 2018 for their moving film “The Silent Child.” Since then, Overton has blossomed into a key creator in the short film world with his company, Slick Films, producing a slew of contenders each year. His own entry, “In Too Deep,” won Best British Short Film at the British Short Film Awards in 2023 over, among others, another contender from Slick Films — Daniel Deville‘s “By Any Other Name.”

Slick Films’ new short, “Suzie,” has just made a splash, being chosen as the newest Vimeo Staff Pick (watch it here). This character study by writer-director Jimmy Dean follows a middle-aged woman on the day she tells her son she is getting a divorce. The film is anchored by a terrific performance from Helen Behan, who was nominated for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2020 for “The Virtues.”

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In a recent conversation (watch below), Dean revealed he was inspired by his mother. “I’d not seen any films that navigated divorce where you just show two people separating and it’s not horrible. It’s not shouting. Conflict is so cinematic so finding something a bit more amicable was just really interesting to me because it’s not something I’d seen before.”

For Behan, her roots allowed her to see the film in a different light. Growing up in Ireland, divorce was a “taboo” and “cloak and dagger” subject for everyone, barring a priest who would name and shame divorced women. For the actress,”it was fascinating to look at this very simple, very heartbreaking, very commonplace thing that happens.”

The film’s simplicity lies in its power: long takes with little dialogue. The story is told in a simple but effective fashion. Behan explains, “those moments were very meticulously laid out. It’s so weighted. It’s so heavy because it’s that inability to get to that point as quickly as you need to. And every facet of that day around it is waiting for that moment.”

Dean and cinematographer Anna Macdonald chose to keep the camera a) stationary and b) at a distance from Suzie. “What she is going through in that day is a horror story to her, so there are little horror influences in there as well. The locked camera I felt was the best way to experience that day with her. To lock you off so there’s no escape and you have to experience it with her. When there are lots of cuts, you create a rhythm. But we wanted to create a very different rhythm where you’re with her the whole way,”

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