leave taking
by Douglas Messerli
Jonathan Wald (screenwriter and director) Just
Out of Reach / 1998
In the 4-minute short film by Jonathan Wald, Just Out of Reach, a younger boy (Steve Connell) wakes up in the bed with an older man (Tom Fitzpatrick). It’s morning, clearly after a night of sex. The boy gently touches the man’s face and hair, rises, and quickly puts on his pants and shoes, sneaking away. Suddenly what sounds more like a car alarm than house detection goes off, the man awaking and joking, “Gottcha!”
The boy says his only line: “I didn’t wanna
wake you.”
The
man smiles with the recognition that the boy is off, perhaps never to
return—certainly not interested in further conversation. “Say hello to your
dad,” he remarks.
The
boy leaves and the man gathers and pulls up his purple coverlet, holding it a
bit into the shape of another being, recognizing this may be the last time.
With
the economy of an abstract artist, US director Jonathan Wald has expressed the
sadness of a moment of pleasure recognized as now forever lost. It’s also
beautifully composed and crisply filmed, something you don’t often see in such
a freshman short. Wald later filmed one of favorites in Australia, What
Grown-Ups Know (2004).
Los Angeles, April 16, 2023
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (April
2023).
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