From Omeleto.
A hard-partying woman loses her friend’s cat.
SITTER is used with permission from James Arden. Learn more at https://brotherfilmco.com.
Aurora has agreed to watch her friend Catherine’s cat Humperdinck while Catherine is away for the weekend. Catherine is anxious — both about leaving her pet and about Aurora’s previous lack of reliability — but Aurora is eager to prove she’s up for the task, despite their checkered history together and Aurora’s reputation as a self-destructive partier.
But going out proves too irresistible for Aurora, and later she discovers that the cat has disappeared at some point during the wild night. Now Aurora must find Humperdinck, retracing her steps and examining her own life choices in the process.
Directed and written by James Arden, this intriguing short dramedy blends the grit and hard-edged glamour of its London nightlife milieu with a feline misadventure that is both darkly funny and existentially sobering for the story’s flawed protagonist. Aurora has both charm and good intentions, but she’s a "hot mess" — one whose messiness finally has consequences that are made visceral for her during one wild night.
The film’s raw, gritty realistic style and camerawork have the free-wheeling energy of its main character, as does its rambunctious, hectic pacing. The zigs and zags of the storytelling reflect Aurora’s instability, as well as her attraction to a more hedonistic milieu and lifestyle, with its almost phantasmagoric lights and music. When Aurora takes on the gig of catsitter for her friend, she doesn’t take it, or her friend’s anxieties, seriously. Too busy going out, smoking and hooking up, her carelessness leads to miscalculations and distraction — enough for a cat to escape into the city.
Actor Iona Chapman gives a raw but charismatic performance as Aurora, capturing not just her wildness but her vulnerability. Deep down, she’s escaping from her own self, full of self-loathing at all her mistakes. When she loses Humperdinck, she realizes that she has confirmed Catherine’s — and her own — worst fears about herself, and she desperately tries to find the cat. In retracing her steps, the city at night takes on a new pallor, one that isn’t as full of excitement or possibility anymore.
Instead, she confronts who she is — and realizes she doesn’t quite like what she sees. It’s a crushing realization, but that moment of self-revelation is the crux of the hypnotic, compelling SITTER. And though Aurora is a particular and vividly drawn character, her realization is relatable to anyone who has hit rock bottom and sees the limitations of their patterns can relate to.
