I’m a sucker for metaphysical dramas that make you question the nature of reality. Director-producer-cinematographer Bryan Enk’s short film The Eleventh Waitress does just that, with two people (well, technically one) in a room, and a bunch of holographic/robotic waitresses appearing before them. It showcases a talented filmmaker operating on a shoestring budget and yet unafraid of tackling existential themes.
Fred Backus plays two versions of the same man: Fred, who comes into a dark, mysterious bar one night; and Tim, who’s a beaten-up version of Fred, awaiting him in the bar, which turns out to be a sort of parallel-dimensional trap. Different waitresses — you guessed it, eleven of them — pop up, literally with a pop, to serve them drinks. “Oh, no, it’s the same one,” Tim says matter-of-factly. “I just put her on shuffle.” He can switch between them with a remote control.
Next thing Fred knows, a gooey gun appears in front of him. “That thing is your only way outta here,” Tim informs him, implying that his drinking partner should shoot the waitress. Oh, and they can drink as much as they want without getting drunk — the “loop just keeps going.” What happens next I’ll leave you to discover, but let’s say it involves someone getting shot in the head and a particularly unexpected character sucking out someone’s brains and making Fred eat them. Sh*t hits the fan, in other words.
A waitress appears out of the darkness with a tray in The Eleventh Waitress.
“…a particularly unexpected character sucking out someone’s brains…”
“Your mind is like this room,” Tim says, referring to the darkness surrounding its edges. He prompts Fred to action, to embrace the darkness. “It’s not a person. It’s an interface,” Tim says, referring to the waitress. Occam’s razor is brought up. The production clearly had next to no budget — the central bar is just the two protagonists sitting against the backdrop of cracked, opaque glass; some of the makeup looks shoddy — but that doesn’t stop Enk and screenwriter Jeff Lewonczyk from reaching for the stars.
Backus does a convincing job playing two versions of himself, if both lean on “eccentric” and “overly expressive.” His rapport with himself becomes an interesting meta power play between two competing versions of the self — the light and darkness within us all, madness and sanity. The simple, ominous choral score only heightens the tension, cloaking the proceedings with its claustrophobic repetition.
The Eleventh Waitress is an admirable effort, demonstrating that an aspiring filmmaker needs to be armed with a good idea and the balls to visualize it, and the little blemishes — most stemming from limited production values — can be forgiven. Holographic/robotic waitresses? Gooey guns? A trap in some sort of quantum vortex? Existential themes? Brains on a platter? There may not be eleven reasons to watch this short, but here are five good ones.
"…an admirable effort..."
