Friday 30 December 2016

THE STYLIST (short)

Starring: Najarra Townsend, Jennifer Plas
Writer: Eric Havens
Director: Jill Gevargizian


Lonely hairstylist Claire (Townsend) has one more client she must attend to before closing the salon for the day. Mandy (Plas) is that client and her aim is to create a lasting impression at a work-related party so all she needs is to "look perfect". What Mandy isn't aware of is that Claire has a somewhat different look in mind...

A while back I reviewed Jill Gevargizian's previous short movie Call Girl and thoroughly enjoyed it, closing by saying how much I was looking forward to The Stylist. Was the wait worth it? Absolutely.

Everything about The Stylist feels like an evolution of the previous piece and that's saying something because Call Girl was pretty damn good. The visuals are even more gorgeous, with the distinctive colour scheme perfectly matching the mood of the piece. It's one of the most, ahem, stylish films - short or otherwise - you'll have seen in a while.

Also, whereas I found Call Girl to be a brash, full-on, wham-bam kind of short with an amusingly bloody exclamation point at the end, The Stylist allows itself to breathe a little more, to leave more questions unanswered, to leave clues as to what may be going on in Claire's head but not tell. It's a confident approach which left me wanting to see how her story continues.

That's not to say it's all suggestion, there's some overt horror too as things take a supremely gruesome turn. I won't actually say what happens but you might wince. As with the rest of the film it's attractively shot, it also happens to be pretty disgusting at the same time - a combination of which I fully approve.

In the lead role, Najarra Townsend is splendid, giving Claire just the right mix of strength and vulnerability as well as a slightly distant quality where I felt the character wasn't fully connected to her surroundings. This could have been overplayed but it isn't, Claire feels like someone real and without wishing to drown this review in spoilers it's the kind of part which could be taken to extremes in less careful hands.

In short (sorry about the pun), it's another winning Eric Havens script brought to vivid life by the exceptionally talented Jill Gevargizian and it's currently playing on the Shudder streaming service, which you can subscribe to for free on a trial basis - if nothing else you'll get to see this chilling and rather fine fifteen minutes of beauty and blood. The only thing that's left for me to say is: how long do I have to wait for Ms Gevargizian's next film?

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