The Back Garden – A Review

The Back Garden is a promising independent short that could use a little pruning. The premise is intriguing enough: Lorenz (played by Melanie Gretchen, who also wrote and Executive produced the film) has a private back garden, but after she brings home a new date, Jonathan, (played by Ryan Wesen), the quiet and solitude of it is disturbed by buried secrets. There is also some early clever dialogue, like when she comments that she never brings people back there, which the audience already knows not to be true since she has brought Jonathan there, negating the never. This is nicely addressed in an exchange between Lorenz and Kendall (played by Bryan Harlow) in the following scene. They acknowledge its falsehood without stripping her of her power. However, by this scene with Lorenz and Kendall, which is the film’s second real scene, it is already clear to the audience that Lorenz is in a tell-tale-heart situation, the use of the sounds of digging in the previous scene makes it abundantly clear that she has buried secrets, mostly likely a body in her back garden. So, when we meet Kendall and they have this exchange, it is easy to conclude that he is that buried secret/body.

Having the audience in the know about this at the top rather than discovering it as the story progressed feels like it limited the film as we didn’t get to go on the journey with the character but rather were ahead and understood what happened the whole time. Still, every scene between Lorenz and Kendall had intriguing dialogue that still managed to build mystery. Especially when Kendall referenced a new girlfriend. Was this a callback to a discussion they had before he left and she killed him, or is he truly back from beyond the grave haunting her and this was a reference to someone she will meet when she meets her end? Intriguing questions the film opens up. The two actors play nicely off of each other.

Wesen got the short stick as Jonathan. After the initial scene, where Jonathan and Lorenz are flirtatious before her guilt kills the mood, his other scenes with Lorenz are intentionally increasingly awkward and uncomfortable. The two achieve this well, but it doesn’t give Wesen a chance to have a lot of playful or charming banter.

The film mostly utilizes its small production space well, the patio in the back garden especially, but we never get a full sense of the back garden, and that would have been nice for a film where it is the central construct. Perhaps it was because it was not one location, and they were cheating it, but in my experience, short films tend to try and shoot in fewer locations not more, so perhaps this is an establishing shot that just got lost craziness of getting the all the scenes shot.