CASHBACK

UK, 2007, 102 minutes, Colour.
Sean Bickerstaff, Emilia Fox, Shaun Evans, Michelle Ryan, Stuart Goodwin, Michael Dixon.
Directed by Sean Ellis.

Four years before this film, writer-director, Sean Ellis, had made a short, Cashback, which went on to win several awards. Two years later, he gathered the cast again to film further sequences to make the film feature-length. The short may have been an effective and quirky short story. Making it a feature seems just to prolong it and make it yet just another offbeat British comedy.

The focus is on Ben (Sean Biggerstaff) who is devastated by his girlfriend dumping him. To counter his insomnia, he takes a night job at the local Saintsbury’s and is attracted to the rather bored cashier, Sharon (Emilia Fox). The night staff is rather oddball with the young men working on stocks and shelves raucous and mischievous and the very prim manager rather too taken with Sharon.

One of Ben’s ways of escaping reality is a capacity to make time stand still. Since he sketches, one of his activities is to freeze-frame the women customers in the supermarket to assess their beauty.

It goes on a bit like this, with Ben being more of a mopoke but suddenly realising that Sharon likes him – rather complicated, as always, when the ex-girlfriend makes an embarrassing scene and wants to make up. The boys at the store, after playing a football match against another staff, send in Ben’s sketches to a gallery to set him up. But, guess what…? Happy endings all round.

1.A romantic comedy? Love, sex, ideals and dreams?

2.The original Oscar-nominated short, being amplified to a feature film?

3.The London settings, Whitechapel, the art school, flats, the Sainsbury supermarkets?

4.The ordinariness of the characters and their locations? The dreams? Real and credible - with the touch of fantasy? Musical score?

5.The introduction to Ben, Suzy and the close-up of her shouting and audiences not hearing what she said, the break-up, Ben and his initiating it, the effect on him? Sean and his advice? In the cafeteria, Suzy with Jenkins? The phone call, no reconciliation? Ben going to art classes, his being distracted from the model, drawing the attractive girl? His being unable to sleep? Buying junk food at Sainsbury's, encountering Sharon at the register? His needing money?

6.The advertisement, the interview with Jenkins, Jenkins and his over-enthusiasm? The work, his wandering around, gazing at the pattern of the peas on the floor, Barry and Matt and their carry-on, the kung-fu young man, Sharon? The boredom, the slow night shift?

7.Ben and his ability to freeze time, the effect, wandering through the shop, the naked shoppers, Sharon frozen in time, carrying Jenkins and putting him outside with Barry and co, freezing the party, Sharon leaving? The final freezing at the gallery - and Sharon able to move with him? Ben as a romantic introverted dreamer?

8.Sharon, at work, Jenkins and his boring her, the customers, the going to the pictures with Matt, Matt's boasting - and its being lies? Talking with Ben, sharing the vision, at the soccer match, his walking her home, the kiss, going to Jenkins' party, her shock at seeing Suzy? The invitation to the exhibition? Seeing her images? Ben asking if she trusted him? Their future?

9.Jenkins, preposterous, the boss, his pomposity, sexist, his desperation at the soccer match, the injuries, his birthday party, the stripper?

10.Barry and Matt, the comic antics in the store? The kung-fu young man and his action?

11.Sean, his talk about himself, the visualising of his continually being rebuffed? His advice? Going to the club, the discussions about the stripper? Discovering it was Natalie?

12.Ben and the flashbacks to when he was a little boy, the au pair girl and her nakedness, his parents' magazines, his curiosity, Natalie and her dress, the girlfriend at school, the kiss, her going to the United States? His traumas and the impact of these incidents on his life?

13.Suzy, her reaction to the break-up, going with Jenkins, the kiss at the party?

14.Barry and Matt and their trying to trick Ben, pretending to ring from the art gallery? Ben going, meeting Alex Proud, looking at his work, the irony of getting the exhibition, the beauty of his sketches, the New York entrepreneur inviting him for further work?

15.Ben as sympathetic, awkward, sex-preoccupied, wanting love, emotional, his friends, the soccer match, the effect of Sharon on him, his ability at artwork - and the future with Sharon?