Title: Squeegee
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Director: Morgan Krantz
Starring: Amy Rutherford, Blair McKenzie, Emily Jane King
Runtime: 10 mins

What it is: A female executive, Lori (Amy Rutherford) prepares for an important meeting. In the midst of her nervous preparation, she comes face to face with a window cleaner (Blair McKenzie) , and sensual tensions between the two start to arise.

What We Think: This is quite the relevant short for these trying times. What it manages to convey within its 10-minute runtime is remarkable. Morgan Krantz is definitely a director I’d like to see more of, the direction is superb and very attentive to what the story wants to accomplish. There are a lot of themes and messages that can be taken from this short: lust, loneliness, and the feeling of human interaction becoming more of a distant concept. There’s a reason why the two main characters are separated by a glass window: it perfectly reflects the world we currently live in, whether it be engaging in conversations through a dating app or, as a more recent example, having to distance ourselves from each other, further isolating ourselves from our personal needs and desires. Without giving away too much of the ending, it’s also a great commentary on how people sometimes seem more amorous behind the veil of a screen (or in this case a window) but in real life, they’re actually the opposite.

This doesn’t mean that the short is depressing, in fact, it’s comedy is so blissfully odd that it makes the short even more enjoyable to watch. It’s also shot beautifully, using close-ups of character’s faces and hands, as well as medium shots of the two main characters, with a sprawling cityscape behind them. I wouldn’t know if they shot some of this on a soundstage, but I’m pretty sure it was filmed at an actual apartment building and high up. I like that authenticity.

Our Grade: A, It’s a very funny, sensual, yet weird and isolated story that reflects how relationships sometimes end as soon as they begin in the current world we live in. I recommend it!