Joe Laverty’s Smashing and Entering is a great-looking short that shows us the power of independent women. Emer Casey’s performance demands your attention as the fearless Goretti – A short film that leaves you wanting more.
First, her privacy is assailed by nuisance callers who soon discover they are more likely to be recruited to the revolution than successfully engaging in identity theft. Second, her home is invaded by a wannabe burglar who leaves with more – and less – than he bargained for. But finally, with the arrival of her son, Goretti realises the real enemy may lie closer to home and may also prove hardest to defeat.
Goretti is not a woman to be trifled with in Joe Laverty’s Smashing and Entering; headstrong to a fault, she wants to live the life she chooses and to hell with what anyone else tries to make her do. She is someone not afraid to stand up for herself, be it some stranger on the phone, her son who, in her mind, wants her out of the house for his own nefarious reasons or even a burglar. She just doesn’t give a damn; she seems content, but as we find out, that relaxed attitude is due to her having other things up her dressing gown sleeve.
Emer Casey’s performance commands your attention throughout the short. You can’t keep your eyes off her as she dominates proceedings like the fearless Goretti. You feel a range of emotions for her in the short time we have with her; at first, we are cheering her for how she stands up for herself and, in fact, are almost more afraid for anyone who comes her way than we are for her. We also get to see a side filled with suspicion and defiance. As a character, Goretti is going to be hard to forget, and that is due mainly to the work of Casey in Smashing and Entering.
Seamus O’Hara and Francis Mezza do well in their roles, with O’Hara giving us a bit of ambiguity in his performance as Niall. We are never sure whether to trust him with how he reacts to the state his mother is living in. Is he aghast because the house is in an absolute state? He is concerned for his mother, or is it that, as he points out, as the holder of the deed to the home, he is more concerned about how much money he will have to spend to make a profit from the place? Giving us this slight ambiguity in Smashing and Entering allows Casey’s Goretti to have a touch of fragility.
She fears that her son will betray her, and in her mind, his pushing her into a home is treachery, no matter if it is out of kindness or not. So, accordingly, considering how we know her personality, she strikes first and strikes hard. Trying to gross out and distract her son from her true plans. This allows for an interesting story that seemingly cuts itself off just as you are beginning to love it.
It has been said before here, but shorts like Smashing and Entering that leave you wanting more are some of the best kinds of short films. We could spend an age with a character like Goretti. Still, Laverty keeps our time with her short and sweet to leave her a powerful enigma of a woman who will remain memorable to you.
Smashing and Entering is also a film that looks top-notch from a production standpoint. You can’t help but love the attention to detail put into this ugly room that even when the lightbulb isn’t screwed in, we see everything in there. Michael MacBroom’s cinematography is splendid in its richness; you feel as if you are living in that kitchen with Goretti, and due to the absolute state of the place, a little inkling of needing to scratch yourself arises.
This leaves us with a strong short film with a character who stays with you and leaves you wanting to see what happens immediately after; Joe Laverty has done something great here.
★★★ 3/4
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