The Coder: Tense, Tight, and Thrilling
If you’ve ever worked for a boss, there’s a high chance that at some point you’ve worked for a terrible one. Overbearing, obnoxious, and no idea how much work actually goes into any given task. Enduring such situations can erode your patience and, sometimes, even your mental health. In The Coder, the newest short film from writer-director Will Crouse, we’re seeing such a situation come to a head in the all-too-volatile world of cryptocurrency.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF CRASHING
Mary’s (Abbey Toot) having a bad day. As she types frantically, struggling to keep a floundering crypto startup afloat, her mental health spirals as she’s inundated with emails from clients demanding refunds after not receiving the returns they were promised. She’s losing sleep, and nervously chews her thumbs as she downs her medication. Things are getting worse, and fast.
When her co-workers learn of the situation, they begin to panic as well. Who wants to go to jail for crypto? It’s all hands on deck, except for Thad (Mickey O’Sullivan), the cocky stereotype of the techbro CEO, who insists on things happening that they’re not set up for yet refuses to hear the reasons why because he’s overpromised to their investors, who are naturally on their way in today.
Intermittently, we’re treated to glimpses inside of Mary’s mind: Surreal vignettes of Thad as a pill-popping, red-eyed devil, rapid cuts, and even quicker scarlet flashes (complete with an epilepsy warning). She begins to panic, fearing losing her health care and medication, and decides to take matters into her own hands.
THE CODER: WELL-EXECUTED
One of the marks of a good short film is that it leaves you longing for more, and that’s the case with The Coder. Abbey is the star, convincingly hanging on by a mental thread with a permanent expression of panic and distress. Her performance allows you to believe along with Mary that things are not what they seem, if they’re even there at all, in addition to the frantic editing of Federico Conforti during the more surreal moments.
Sean Kazarian and Yuchi Chiu do well as Mary’s coworkers, the former more sympathetic to her than the latter, and O’Sullivan is too good as Thad. He clearly enjoys the role, and is almost naturally loathsome in the best way. Crouse has delivered a gripping thriller in a tight fifteen minutes, and I can only hope this is a proof of concept for a feature so we can learn more about what’s really going on in Mary’s Head.
The Coder will be having its world premiere at Dances With Films Saturday, December 7th.
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