Did You Ever ...

**1/2

Reviewed by: Angus Wolfe Murray

Sarah is an old fashioned ballbreaker, dressed up in 21st century unisex gear - T-shirt and chinos. She's a mouthy broad, who starts off the way she's going to continue, loud and pissed off. She lays into her boyfriend on a mobile phone ("I'm a woman, not a frigging meat puppet!"), telling him to get lost, because she's driving to California without his sorry ass.

The rest of this tricksy short slips into a road movie cliche, complete with fit hitchhiker and sexual fantasies on the dreamscope. Sarah behaves aggressively towards her passenger, wanting his body and yet despising his gender.

Director Justin Leonard Stauber leans towards a pop video style, with fast cuts, slo-mo and fantasy fills, which is unsettling and artsy tartsy. The surprise ending makes a nonsense of what has been before, unless you believe in the omnipotent capacity of rich bitches to make life bend to their every whim.

Sarah is deeply unlikable and the hitchhiker/victim charmless. The film has a gloss that doesn't wipe off. It knows what to do, but not where to go.

Reviewed on: 09 Mar 2004
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Angry girl picks up hitchhiker and gives him a bad time.

Director: Justin Leonard Stauber

Year: 2002

Runtime: 30 minutes

Country: Germany

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