Cashback

How many can stare at some spilled peas on the floor and find beauty. With this film, you may never look at still life the same again.

How do you fill the time that is flying by. We may not have the ability to freeze it and just enjoy the beauty of nature, but maybe we can spend some more of it appreciating life's beauty.

The cinematography and music really captivated me and set the mood long before the ingenious freezing sequence. It made the nudity something to be appreciated and enjoyed, not some cheesy titillation.

Ben (Sean Biggerstaff) is creating this world after breaking up with his girl (Michelle Ryan). There are a lot of laughs in the film with other supermarket employees, who are really interesting characters. There are flashbacks to Ben's childhood that provide other very interesting moments. Hayley-Marie Coppin, for one. But, it is not until Ben and Sharon (Emilia Fox) start seeing each other that his life starts to get back to normal.

Everything is not all smooth from then on out, and we get to see the same scene with Sharon that we saw with Suzy in the beginning. It was very original. It is what happens in life when we see one second of a two-second story.

But, the moment when Sharon walks into the Proud Gallery was just precious, and you knew things would work out.

A magical ending to a great film by Sean Ellis leaves us wanting MORE!

Our hero is a dorky art student, newly and painfully broken up with his girlfriend, attempting to find something to fill his sleepless nights. He goes to work at a grocery store, where his imagination and eccentric coworkers help him through the breakup and put a little romance back into his life.

There is some artistic nudity, where our protagonist sketches various men and women in the buff; none of it seems gratuitous, it's just one more part of the film. I'm a big fan of artistic nudity, although I have to admit I've never been able to get chicks to strip down in the supermarket as they do in this film. It's a talent, certainly, that every man could use.

Overall, it's a slightly offbeat romantic comedy of the sort we could use more of. Not formulaic, not predictable, but enjoyable and entertaining. I watched it with my girlfriend, who refused to pose artistically afterwards, but you can't have everything. I've noticed that romantic movies don't necessarily translate into romantic activities for the people watching them; there should be a category of movies that does so, although I don't know what it would be.

All in all, it's a good date movie, good couch movie, just a good movie to watch when you're in the mood for something lighthearted and quirky.

This is a small and simple film that has nothing simple and therefore results in nothing small. In fact, films like these show how some supposed delicacies produced by big studios can be put to shame by simple dishes by lesser-known authors who present us with delicious proposals made only with fine quality ingredients.

Everything in this movie results in. A script that is developed from a banal starting point, but which is treated in an original and emotionally elaborate way; an impeccable performance by the entire cast, which builds a gallery of characters that both provoke the most spontaneous laughter and moments of the deepest honest reflection; a cinematography sometimes just elegant, sometimes totally breathtaking; an extremely versatile and relevant soundtrack.

This is a film that comes out of a minor league, but that will not be considered as beeing at that level by anyone watches it.

I attended the world premiere of "Cashback" at the Toronto International Film Festival. I walked out in a daze. I had a feeling I'd seen something special, that moment when you have to pause to take a breath and reflect on what you've experienced. I still had about 20 films to go at the time, and "Cashback" raised the bar and became the benchmark against which all the others would have to be compared. As it turned out, nothing came close. Of the 30 plus films I saw that week, "Cashback" tops the list.

Literally built around the short film of the same name which screened at festivals in 2004, triple threat writer/director/producer Sean Ellis did something ingenious. Rather than take his 20 minute piece and expand it to fill 90 minutes, he created a new Act One and Act Three to bookend a reworking of the original short in the center. And he pulled it off with a tour de force of light and sound. The result is an eerie, compelling twist on the classic Outer Limits episode where time stops while the protagonist weaves in and out of the frozen characters in another dimension. It may sound like sci-fi, but this is a sweet romantic comedy whose storyline is among the most original I've ever seen on screen. The concept is brilliant and the result magnificent.

The look is lush, cinematography by Angus Hudson breathtaking, and "Cashback" features an appropriately sweet score. They combine to give this low budget project a big movie feel, destined for the wide audience it deserves.

Most of all, I believe "Cashback" is the vehicle which will introduce newcomer Sean Biggerstaff (Oliver Wood of "Harry Potter") to the world. His star tun in this film as protagonist Ben Willis left me speechless. The camera loves him, and he is on screen virtually from opening to closing credits. This film is his to make or break. It rests on his shoulders, and he owns the material.

As they say, you'll laugh, you'll cry, and I walked out with a tear in my eye and a smile on my face. And no other film I saw at the Toronto Film Festival did that to me. "Cashback" is a sweet little masterpiece.

Well written, well acted, well shot, interesting plot, thoughtful, and several beautiful women in various stages of dress; what more could a man want from a serious film.

I enjoyed this film overall about a coming of age. There were enough laughs to call this a comedy, but it was more than just that. I found Ben's "powers" to be interesting without suspending too much reality. I thought that the acting by Sean Biggerstaff to be very good. Nice to see him stepping out of Harry Potter and do well. The cast was very solid.

Overall, a good solid B- for this flick.