From Omeleto.
A father and daughter share a day.
Abbie is a little girl who hasn’t seen her father, Chuck, in some time. She is excited when he’s set to spend the day with her, despite her mother Jess’s trepidation, which only heightens when Chuck rolls up in a convertible.
The pair set off for a day of fun adventures, with Chuck promising a movie and time together. But Chuck makes a few detours, making a phone call and meeting someone in the woods. Abbie is unsettled but unaware of what’s going on, and left to her own devices, she has a few adventures of her own.
Directed and written by Heidi Nyburg, this gently drawn yet perceptive short drama is a tender, affectionate portrait of a young girl who comes to a painful realization about one of her parents. Told with a softly radiant visual naturalism and a feather-light pace, it captures the innocence of Abbie’s childhood, from her whimsical love for dolls and fairy tales to her sweetly trusting devotion to her father, only to be disappointed by his all-too-human flaws.
One of the storytelling’s strengths is how it balances Abbie’s emotional world of innocence and charm with the harsher adult realities of Chuck, who is clearly still in the throes of an addiction that has kept him from being fully present in his daughter’s life to begin with. Chuck’s actions drive the plot, but he periodically disappears, leaving Abbie suspended in her own world. Parts of that world are magical, with encounters with other children in the forest. But others are not, as when she follows her father into the restroom, where he has disappeared into to get high.
The tone of the film could easily veer into melodrama, but it remains gently matter-of-fact, even observational, thanks in part to the natural, understated performances of its lead. As Chuck, actor James Hal Hardy plays a father who clearly loves his daughter, as well as the addict’s unrelenting drive for the drug he’s ruled by. Actor Lauren Jude Rosa is beautifully charming as Abbie, who never fully understands what is happening to her father, but manages to find solace in play and imagination, even at the worst moments.
FIVE AND A HALF ends on one of these quietly terrible moments, one where we’re not entirely sure what will happen, leaving us in a state of suspense. Based on a true story, it offers a personal, intimate and clear-eyed perspective on the toll that a loved one’s addiction has on their children. They may or may not understand fully what is going on. But they know when they feel safe or not, and they cope in the moment in the few ways they know how: through imagination, play and exploration, trying to make sense of the often senseless behaviors and actions that affect them.
FIVE AND A HALF. Courtesy of Heidi Nyburg at https://heidinyburg.com.
