High Peak Independent Film Festival - Review: Sauce

Superb performances elevate an intimate drama, sending the audience in rumination without being pushy about it.

Recently matched on Tinder, Joshua (Michael Workeye) and Becks (Avigail Tlalim) drive on a desolated night. Their voices disturb the tranquility of the surrounding that starts and ends in the confines of their car. The destination is never revealed; the path is created along the way. This meandering sets the narrative tone of Sauce, a 15-minute short directed by Daniel Daniel.

When the phone first rings, disrupting their singing, Joshua makes a subtle expression familiar to every boy who has faced interruption on a date by the call from the girl's male best friend. The caller has a history with Becks, going deeper than just the fact that they shared the same university. There might be traces of a romantic relationship in here. From the outside, Joshua assures Becks to pick up the phone but may very well be cursing the caller from the inside, whose name is JJ. And what is the name of the director? Daniels Daniels. DD. Sauce can be seen as a page out of DD's personal diary though it would only be natural if you find yourself drawing parallels to your own life. The inception of such thoughts only proves how accurately the film has been made with every little attention to detail. This realness doesn't take away from the entertainment. Perhaps, the more appropriate word should be engagement.

Joshua is serious about Becks. He even deleted Tinder after they had started going out together. She, on the other hand, likes him but is not ready to fully commit. "I want all the sauces, and I can't just choose one, I can't just have ketchup!" Becks defends. She loves ketchup, and she loves mayonnaise and believes they are not a threat to each other. "I'm just...I'm not a sauce," Joshua adds, "I'm more of a hearty steak." In case you are wondering where these food analogies are coming from, well, they have stopped to eat at the drive-thru. When Becks finds out there is no chilli sauce and curry sauce, it extends more towards this messy situation than merely a missing order.

One of the delights of watching films in a film festival is the exposure to new talents. Michael Workeye and Avigail Tlalim give terrific performances. A script like this thrives on improvisation, and both the actors deliver phenomenally. I am not sure how much the director contributed in this aspect, but Workeye and Tlalim rule every frame. Becks' confusion and Joshua's frustration escapes the screen and reaches within. I was so involved that I almost forgot that the whole drama was filmed as a one-continuous shot. Sauce does not pass any moral judgments, and neither asks us to do the same. What it goes for is introspection because after analyzing through the menu, one has to finally settle on a dish.

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