Wil

Synopsis: Wil Schindel (Matthew Dyktynski) is an accountant who is offered a contract that will chain him to his desk for 10 years. Should he go for security or choose a larger life?

Jeremy Weinstein's debut feature is an impressively-made film satirizing the life of the corporate salary-man. Scripted by Paul Kooperman, it is essentially a fantasy that takes place in Wil's mind (wittily re-created as an elevator) as he ponders what his life has become and where it might be going. We are taken through all manner of situations that in their Jewishness recall Woody Allen's attempts to show life's not-so-rich tapestry in a gaily comedic manner. Whilst these are done with a good deal of panache, there are some structural problems that prevent the concept from working as it might have.

Largely the problems come down to the fact there is only one principal character, Wil, and he is a terminally bland individual (in this respect Dyktynski is very good). The rest of the characters in the film are essentially just that - characters - they walk on and walk off stage according their respective roles but with no with interconnection either to Wil or to each other (the seder which comes towards the end of the film does not remedy this lack). There's the wife (a too old and too beautiful Jude Beaumont), the Jewish Mother and hen-pecked father (Evelyn Krape and Terry Camilleri), the Psychiatrist (Max Gilles), God (Sally-Anne Upton) and so on.

Equally, whilst some of the skits are mildly funny and some are not, overall there are too many of them and they do not tie up to create a satisfying whole. Here the blame rests with the scriptwriter more than the director. Despite the cleverness of the central concept, greater originality, more rigour and more depth of development were needed in the writing to make this small film the gem it could have been.

 

 

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