2022 Oscars Reviews: Short Films (Documentary, Animated, Live-Action)
Still from The Long Goodbye, starring and co-written by last year’s Best Actor nominee Riz Ahmed. The Long Goodbye is nominated for Best Live Action Short at the 94th Academy Awards.
Just as I said in the previous post, I got to watch all of the short films again this year! While I didn’t like them as much as the extra feature films I was able to watch, or even as much as last year’s shorts, there are some gems in here that I definitely recommend. There is Best Documentary Short Subject, there’s Best Animated Short Film, and there’s Best Live Action Short Film. I’ll tackle my short reviews and thoughts in that order, listing where each is available should you be interested. Let’s get to it! Read on!
Best Documentary Short Subject
Audible (39 minutes, Netflix): Continuing the trend of Deaf-focused movies that have hit the Oscars the last few years, Audible follows students at the Maryland School for the Deaf as they prepare for a homecoming football game in the wake of the suicide of the main subject’s close friend. My only gripe with this is that I wish it was a miniseries, not just a short! I liked it a lot and I highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of something like Cheer.
Lead Me Home (39 minutes, Netflix): Lead Me Home looks at unhoused populations and policies in West Coast cities: Los Angeles, Seattle, and San Francisco. While it could have been an illuminating documentary, it just didn’t really click with me for some reason. It was very glossy and Netflix-y when I found that to be inappropriate - I think a better use of this budget would have been to help support policies and organizations that actually help the unhoused.
The Queen of Basketball (22 minutes, YouTube): This one is a New York Times documentary about Lusia Harris, the first woman drafted into the NBA. The documentarian interviews Harris and chronicles her career from the little-known Delta State University basketball team, through to when she became the first woman to ever score a point in the Olympics, all the way through to her selection by the New Orleans Jazz in the 1977 NBA Draft. Rather than playing, though, she decided to start a family. It was fascinating to see and hear from such a trail blazer that has been sort of lost to history. I consider myself a reasonably big basketball fan and I had no clue that a woman was ever drafted, let alone in 1977. Harris unfortunately passed away shortly after the film came out and that adds an extra layer of “what could’ve been” to her story, but it was a good watch regardless.
Three Songs for Benazir (22 minutes, Netflix): This is a classic Oscars pain project on an important subject. An Afghan refugee tries to join the army to provide for his wife, and when no one in his family will sponsor him, he goes to work in the opium fields with predictably bad results. It’s how it sounds. Help refugees.
When We Were Bullies (36 minutes, YouTube): Oh man. Where do I start with this one? A man’s documentary about how his entire fifth grade class bullied someone (but don’t worry, the victim’s probably doing fine now) never should’ve really gotten off the ground. I’m happy for the documentarian in that he clearly feels extreme regret for the bullying and that creating this film probably helped him deal with his own personal trauma, but he should’ve listened to his former fifth grade teacher, now 92 years old, when she said “I don’t think anyone wants to see your movie.”
Ranking: Audible, The Queen of Basketball, Three Songs for Benazir, Lead Me Home, When We Were Bullies
Best Animated Short Film
Affairs of the Art (16 minutes, YouTube): Everyone in this wacky family is obsessed with something, and the lead character Beryl’s addiction is art. She tells a weird story about an older sister who’s sort of sociopathic, and while it’s mildly entertaining, the chaotic pencil drawings mixed with the chaotic energy coming from the narrator didn’t really do it for me.
Bestia (15 minutes, Vimeo): This was a really abstract one using ceramic-style animation to show how a woman that was an enforcer in the Chilean Revolutionary Guard was affected by the actions she had to commit in service of her country. I didn’t have much sympathy for her, but it was an interesting watch.
Boxballet (15 minutes, N/A): Even a boxer and a ballet dancer can be together and teach each other stuff. That’s basically the point of this one. People can meet in the middle somewhere, or something. We’re not reinventing the wheel here, but it was a cool enough watch with good animation.
Robin Robin (32 minutes, Netflix): I liked this one a lot! I’m excited to show it to my child when he’s old enough to like, comprehend stuff. It’s about a robin who was born into a family of mice and isn’t a very good mouse! She has to learn how to develop her own strengths to complement those of the mice and become a happy family! And Richard E. Grant is in it! It was wonderful.
The Windshield Wiper (14 minutes, YouTube): I feel like the point of this one was “we’ll never fall in love because we’re always on our phones,” and the anti-phone preaching is just passe at this point. It was interestingly animated though.
Ranking: Robin Robin, Bestia, Boxballet, Affairs of the Art, The Windshield Wiper
Best Live-Action Short Film
Ala Kachuu: Take and Run (38 minutes, N/A): These short films were crushing this year. Ala Kachuu is about a practice in Kyrgysztan where women are kidnapped and forced to marry their kidnapper…except the entire family of the kidnapper is OK with it? This one has one of the few “happy” endings of the live-action shorts this year but still, man, there’s a lot of heaviness in this one.
The Dress (29 minutes, HBO Max): Here, the rug got pulled out from under the film by the ending. It’s about a self-described dwarf woman trying to navigate her life when she meets a man and strikes up a conversation with him. The lead, Anna Dzieduszycka, is excellent, but the film is truly wasted by a terrible ending that goes to show that the writer is a non-dwarf who went for shock value over coherence.
The Long Goodbye (12 minutes, YouTube): Riz Ahmed is different. This is a true short film: a swift 12 minutes that takes you from a normal day in a South Asian-British household through an unspeakable act through…a blazing, blistering rap about racism and politics? It’s out there, but Riz is one of those magnetic figures that pulls it all together with realness, gravitas, and poignancy. I would love to see him get his first Oscar for this (and he deserved it for Sound of Metal last year!).
On My Mind (18 minutes, YouTube): I actually forgot I watched this one. It’s about a guy who wants to do karaoke in a bar, but the bar owner says it’s not open. They go back and forth for a bit until he finally lets him do karaoke for a woman in his life. Turns out, the woman is dying and he wanted to play her one last song he used to karaoke for her. Yeah, it’s a gut punch for no reason and a twist for the sake of having a twist.
Please Hold (19 minutes, HBO Max): Technology bad! The carceral system bad! The legal system bad! This takes place sometime in the future, where the police force and most things relating to the legal system have been automated. A man is picked up for a crime carrying decades in prison, though he is never apprised of the charges against him. It’s a decent watch, but it’s not very subtle in its theming and it’s like a decent Black Mirror episode.
Ranking: The Long Goodbye, Ala Kachuu: Take and Run, Please Hold, On My Mind, The Dress