There is a pocket of time when we are at our most believable, provided we meet certain other criteria. It’s briefer than anyone wants to admit, and we never notice it quite until it has passed us by. When you’re a child, no one puts much stock in your word. Even though that is when it’s at it’s most revolutionarily powerful, no one thinks much of it at all. It is all chalked up to naïve whimsy. When you’re older—say, retirement age and beyond—people seem just as inclined to write you off for strangely similar reasons. Despite a lifetime of experience and thoughts, past a certain point we decide that, societally speaking, the thoughts and anxieties of the elderly mean very little in the grand scheme of the hustle and bustle of daily life demanding so much of our attention.
Writer/director/producer Masha Ko’s “The Looming”, which won the Short Film Special Jury Prize for Directing at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, demands we all take a step back to consider the way we think about the experiences we would rather pretend not to see.
Chester (Joseph Lopez) lives alone. His children are grown and moved away with children and lives of their own demanding their attention and time such that he only gets to see his daughter on holidays. His only companion is his Siri-esque home assistant, Luna (voiced by Brianne Buishas), that turns on the lights and keeps him conversational company over meals. When Chester begins to hear something going bump in the night in his apartment, he begs those around him to believe him when he describes the sounds as someone else present in his home. An entity he can barely catch out of the corner of his eye, but can feel and hear and be trapped by at a moment’s notice. The only problem is, of course, nobody believes him. They either look at him askance with a worried tinge to their eyes or joke that he’s nearing the onset of Alzheimer’s, unable to trust his own faculties. Until one night, Luna hears it too. She acknowledges. Responds. And he has confirmation of what he has always known but no one else believed—he’s not alone in here.
And something sounds like it’s hunting for him.
“The Looming” is stark, and unsettling, and beautiful. In its brief runtime it manages to sneak under your skin and remind you how important your relationships are. Nothing, really, could or should be blown off when it is coming from the people we love, but certainly not something as alarming as a repeated distress call. And yet, again and again Chester is diminished or brushed off because who has time to pander to the fears of an aging man who calls at the least brush of wind?
Joseph Lopez’s turn as Chester fills the short with so much expression and life. We’re hanging on his every word and move right from the opening scene. He’s evocative in every frame, and framed in such haunting cinematography you almost don’t realize you’re holding your breath until the final release. When he yearns and aches for someone to just hear what he’s saying just once, we feel compelled to come through the screen and shake everyone too nervous to believe him that he’s in danger! He needs help! He is begging for help and why won’t any of you listen to him?!
It’s a simple, haunting story, and brutal in its heartfelt simplicity. There’s something tender at the core. Something raw and breathing. Something we all pretend not to see coming out of the corners of our eyes—that those we love may well not be there forever. And that we spend so much time wrapped in ourselves we may forget to take the time for them when they need it most.
Tags: Brianne Buishas, Family, Haunting, Joseph Lopez, Masha Ko, relationships, Short Film, Sundance, Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival 2024, The Looming
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