Manuel (Hugo Villalvazo) is on a night out with his drinking buddy Santiago (Eduardo Tolledo). Manuel is a young slim guy with a thick mustache to help make up for his babyface, while Santiago is an older friend trying to get Manuel to stop creeping over Manuel’s supposedly ex-girlfriend’s online pictures with her new beau. This short film ‘Paradise Fifty Five’ by Luis Arturo Madrazo, is a fun and silly bar pick-up scene with small but very effective dialogues that cover the premise of this film.
Santiago was invited out for drinks by Manuel, but the scene shows the Manuel is heavily distracted by the phone instead of talking to Santiago. Santiago encourages Manuel to hit on a girl who has been eyeing them across the table. Manuel makes eye-contact with said girl and up he goes to make an overture towards her. The awkwardness of Manuel approaching her and his conversation somehow manages to win her over and gets her number. And in the end, his overexcitement in his success to getting her phone number somehow gets lost in the end.
As simple as the story may be, there was enough funny moments within the short film that is under 6 minutes long. The interior shots of the restaurant were nicely shot with the low light cinematography and lively bar/restaurant scene which looks like a fun place to hang out with a few buddies or pickup someone for a date. Most of the scenes were shot tight to medium wide giving the main focus on all the characters who have a dialogue to progress the plot of the story.
The non-verbal expressions had the right comedic timing of actions that matches the pacing of this short film. The moment Manuel makes eye contact with the girl and seeing him smile with beer coming out of his mouth gives viewers the chuckle and reinforcement of his quirky and awkward personality in this film. The facial expressions and sly smiles carried Manuel’s look and feel of his character, where he could be seen confident, yet give off the fact that he is not always sure of himself about being confident. This provides that funny give-and-take of his interactions with the other characters in each scene.
The background sound effects and music help set the tone of the location of this film. The saxophone and jazzy vocals are used just right to help give the film the right amount to the audience that this story does not take itself seriously. The quality of the dialogues is simple and straightforward, much like any situational romantic comedies that may have influenced the direction of this film.
When Manuel meets the girl and her friend, you are given the same situation of the target and her wingman (or wingwoman in this case). They look like they were also playing the game of pick-me-up as they made eye contact with Manuel and his wingman Santiago. This is a very traditional setup done many times before in romantic comedies, but a great plot device that leverages Luis’s direction to give his refreshing take of a romantic comedy. Does it do anything different? Not really, but it sure is pretty entertaining.
There are many reasons that made this an entertaining one to watch. All the characters played their roles well. The dialogue is slick and to the point. The cinematography was well shot. Use of sound effects and audio were clear and well-balanced. For a student film, all the fundamentals were applied in putting together an effective story and setting the foundation of a situational comedy.
The only thing that was a bit off were the subtitles. They moved at a bit too fast for the viewers to read quickly if they don’t understand Spanish. It’s a minor nitpick, but the actions the characters do in the film give enough to make up for the subtitles in what they are trying to convey in each scene.
Luis has done a great job putting this short film together. One can only imagine the small budget it had, yet was able to put out a very good quality of work and cast members to make this one worth watching more than a few times.
© 2022. UniversalCinema Mag.