In writer/director Gregory Hatanaka’s One Hour Girlfriend, an isolated man named Richard (Chris Spinelli) contracts with an agency to send a companion to his home for an hour, agreeing to pay $100K for her time. Melina (Sofia Papuashvili) arrives, unaware that Richard is embarking on a controlled experiment to quantify emotions. As the hour begins, Richard insists that Melina try to control her emotional energy, and he gives her a hard time about her experiences and travel history. He behaves like a complete jerk to her.
The clock ticks while Richard provokes Melina and criticizes her. We begin to wonder if mistreating women is his kink. But then he tells her the story of the running of the bulls in Pamplona, in an animated presentation that amounts to a performance. She is charmed by this. Richard rants like a madman, and it’s unclear what is troubling him. When he has Melina dress in a pink astronaut’s jumpsuit with a motorcycle helmet, we begin to get a glimmer of his deep emotional injury and the pain he suffers. The psychodrama plays out between the two of them as emotional trauma is surfaced. Questions are explored about how one stays open to intimacy behind severe psychic damage. Eventually catharsis is reached, in a great release and an unexpected sweetness. There’s a clever twist that comes, revealing the true nature of the “experiment.”
“Melina arrives, unaware that Richard is embarking on a controlled experiment to quantify emotions.”
Spinelli’s performance as Richard paints the character as an unlikeable character, and Papuashvili gives us Melina as his long-suffering victim. They both eventually transform into better versions of themselves. The film plays the hour out in real time, making it unusually short for a feature, but no motion is wasted. A lot of water goes under the bridge in that hour.
One Hour Girlfriend is less about cause and effect than it is about exploring emotion and tones. The viewer may find themselves taken to someplace troublesome in their own mind, unearthing whatever disquiet bedevils them. It is a thoughtful, compassionate meditation on love, the passage of time, and the erosion of the soul from losses sustained.
Learn more at the official One Hour Girlfriend website.
"…a thoughtful, compassionate meditation on love..."
