There is no question that film lovers have dearly missed their regular visits to their local cinemas during this difficult time. Now that there are tentative reopenings and people are venturing forth again, it is timely that we are reminded how hard cinema employees work. For one thing, they have to clean some unspeakable messes after the crowds leave their theater seats. For another, there is a small but most annoying percentage of moviegoers who feel inclined to engage in harassing the personnel, particularly the women.
Marianne Chase has written and directed a darkly funny tale in loving tribute to working at the iconic Curzon Soho cinema in London. She is also clearly a fan of chocolate cake. For connoisseurs of baked goods, it appears that a permutation of Black Forest cake makes a featured appearance in this film and it looks delectable.
The Curzon Soho is a sizable enough place that a lurker could easily hide away until the opportunity to accost an employee presents itself, and this is the situation Audrey (Chase) finds herself in. Wearily comforting herself with cake, she is facing a late night of cleaning and closing up the cinema with her manager. Polina Stolarova is mostly a voiceover presence as the manager but that only builds the tension up further as Audrey discovers a customer has stayed behind way past closing time.
Femme Filmmakers Festival 2021 – Day Four
Gabriel Bisset-Smith is the “The Dark L” and plays him to narcissistic perfection. He so clearly finds himself irresistible, he can’t for a moment believe any woman wouldn’t find him that way too. However, he also attempts to manipulate Audrey with vague threats about reporting her for less than accommodating service to a customer when she obviously is less than enthused about his presence in the cinema. He goes through a whole well-rehearsed routine of fawning compliments and when they fail to trigger the response he is expecting the situation quickly erodes.
Audrey has clearly dealt with difficult customers before but “Dark L” becomes petulant and insulting in short order which forces her hand. The payoff of the twist ending is worth the wait of the short runtime.
Chase has a wonderful sense of pacing that keeps the annoying creep from becoming too grating on the audience’s nerves even if he burns through the last remaining thread of Audrey’s patience. Beta Male – The Tale of the Dark L is wicked fun and the original score of quietly dissonant guitar by FloraDora that plays over the end credits is a perfect match.
