Dir: Chris Morris. Starring: Paddy Considine, Chris Morris.
This is the first cinematic effort from comedy icon Morris, a BAFTA-winning short film adaptation of his own radio monologue. Clocking in at just 12 minutes, it is questionable whether My Wrongs really warranted a separate release, even at the budget price of £6-7. However, for all its brevity, the film itself is a delight. My Wrongs hails from the same source material as the Channel 4 series Jam of a few years ago, that being Radio 1 graveyard slot show Blue Jam. It would be wrong, though, to view this as a glorified comedy sketch. Considine is wonderful as an unnamed man who, whilst house-sitting for a friend, has a schizophrenic episode and goes on a rampage with the homeowner's dog, Rothko. The dog apparently talks to Considine's character, voiced suavely by Morris, and claims to be his lawyer, appointed to defend him for every wrong thing he's ever done.
My Wrongs is a perfectly self-contained whole with a beginning, middle and end. It's just that these are all far closer together than in a full-length movie. The direction is fast-paced and assured, and the whole thing is extremely funny. Even with a reported budget in excess of £150k, once or twice you can see the joins, but generally the whole enterprise is staged immaculately. There are some quite complex special effects, such as talking animals and a bizarre flashback/dream sequence that probably pushed up the budget somewhat, yet in the end the investment was almost certainly worth it. As the narrative is fairly strange, I would recommend a second viewing so you can really get a handle on everything that is going on. Still, this just makes the DVD better value for money!
As further encouragement to part with your cash, there are an array of special features provided on the disc. Some of these are quite worthwhile, others at best "conceptual". The original Blue Jam monologue is included, and is fantastic in its own right. There is also a funny if entirely pointless cut-up of old clips of TV dog trainer Barbara Woodhouse, edited in such a way as to make her say things like "don't treat your dog with respect just do anything you really want." Less interesting but still worthwhile is an item on computer-animating the mouth of a dog so that it apparently talks, and an alternative version of the Dolby Digital soundtrack. On the negative side, an anti-commentary from one of the film's runners is, as you would expect, a waste of a time. Best of all, actually, is the DVD packaging, a convincing facsimile of a ladybird-sized book. It's a very stylish case, if totally the wrong size to fit neatly in anyone's DVD collection!
As an art-form, short films are not really in the mainstream. This can make it particularly difficult to judge one, as there is some difficulty finding anything to compare it against. Luckily, on the FilmFour website there are stacks of not very good shorts freely available for streaming, including a particularly bad one from the League of Gentlemen's Jeremy Dyson and Mark Gatiss. It is called The Cicerones and is really shockingly poor. If these otherwise eminently respectable comedy bastions can falter so badly, to make a decent short is clearly a praiseworthy achievement. Chris Morris is reportedly looking for a feature project. On the evidence of My Wrongs, he could certainly do a good job.
Chris Denton.
Warp Records - www.warprecords.com The people behind the wrongs
FilmFour - www.filmfour.co.uk Well meaning distributors of below-par rubbish (registration necessary to view short films)
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