Evan Roberts | Yeah, Kowalski! / 2012

childish pleasures

by Douglas Messerli

 

Britta Lundin and Evan Roberts (screenplay), Evan Roberts (director) Yeah, Kowalski! / 2012 [10 minutes]

 

US screenwriter and director Evan Roberts’ 2011 film, 33 Teeth, about a young boy having a crush on his older high school neighbor was an absolutely charming short. The comparison of signs of maturity in that work were of little significance since the subject was penis size, which given the difference of ages, was less of a significant source of envy than it was a simple expression of desire.

     In his short work of a year later, Yeah, Kowalski!, the late blooming 13-year-old Gabe Kowalski (Cameron Wofford) is very much ashamed of his bodily differences, particularly since he has a crush on a boy of same age, Shane (Conor Donnelly) who has already developed underarm fuzz, while Gabe remains hairless. Desperate to impress his fellow classmate, or just to get his attention, Gabe pastes some of the hair his father has just trimmed from Gabe’s head, into his armpits, and now struts off to a local birthday party showing of his suddenly visible sign of male masculinity.

     The trouble is that having a crush on an older boy next door and being fascinated by the size of his cock is someone poignant, while trying to show-off your underarms to your male and female peers isn’t at all appealing or even very comedic, particularly when you get pushed into the pool…well the hair goes everywhere.

      It doesn’t matter anyway, since Shane bicycles by soon after and invites himself over for a visit to Gabe’s house. Gabe is thrilled, without seeming to recognize that his post-pubescent rosy red cheeks and smooth, hairless complexion makes him far cuter than the early adolescent slightly pimpled complexion of his friend’s face. But then young boys always want, so it seems, what they can’t yet get. But at least now Gabe has Shane’s attention, something unthinkable and maybe even undesirable in my ancient days. Besides, in washing off the paste left under his arms, he discovers he’s suddenly spouted a tiny black hair.

     Too bad Roberts’ film is about as pointless as his character’s childish pleasures.

 

Los Angeles, June 1, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (June 2023).