Australian filmmaker Nash Edgerton directed, co-wrote and stars in this macabre short about a couple whose fraying relationship is not being resolved when they go out for a drive. She’s behind the wheel, and pulls over to buy gas. He exits into the gas station’s convenience store to buy flowers, chocolate candy, and an unlikely rubber toy as a means of appeasement.
It would be rude to spoil the surprise of what happens next, since the attempt at appeasement winds up going horribly awry in unimaginable back-to-back incidents. The first incident literally comes out of nowhere and is a bold shock – the viewer is caught off-guard completely and the film would’ve been brilliantly effective had it ended there. Edgerton and his crew did a smashing job (literally) of staging what happens.
The second incident, however, feels more like a Seth MacFarlane-style sick joke instead of the satisfying denouement of karmic retribution that Edgerton obviously intended. It is somewhat funny in a sick way, but it is poorly staged to have genuine impact beyond being a cheap laugh.
