From Omeleto.
A man fights for his reputation.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS is used with permission from Cameron Turnbull. Learn more at https://cameronturnbull.com.
Ed is an Everyman just living his life when he discovers, to his horror, that his image is being plastered across a series of public service campaigns, designed to encourage people not to be unhealthy and uncouth in their lifestyle.
With his reputation, job and engagement on the line, he approaches the advertising agency responsible for the campaign. But as he encounters Mr. Wilson, the agency’s representative and
"director of complaints," Ed discovers that he is merely a pawn in a much larger game.
Directed by Cameron Turnbull from a script written by Jack Adcock, this dystopian sci-fi short comedy is a surreal yet darkly hilarious study of how deeply technology has seeped into our lives. Even the most private, unruly corners are penetrated by Big Tech’s abilities to capture and rework data, images, words and online behavior. Ed discovers that his online content has become the poster child for aberrant behavior, and he does everything he can against an almost all-powerful entity to make it stop.
The narrative is essentially a two-hander, a conversation between two people in a room. But while most two-handers focus on intimacy and the evolving relationship between the characters, this narrative sets it up as an arch and unsettling confrontation between David and a corporate Goliath. The visuals develop and evoke a rich world outside of the room, deploying a quick stream of Ed’s details, images, sounds and words that a nameless but powerful company has hijacked to portray. This mixture is very funny and relatable, but also disturbing in how easily it has been accessed and used.
That feeling of disquiet only grows as the conversation between Ed and the corporate avatar Mr. Wilson progresses, relayed in sharp, smart writing that balances absurdity with the quotidian and ordinary. As Ed and Mr. Wilson, respectively, actors Edward Kaye and Ed Eales White play with that line of grounded reality and eerie eccentricity, though as Ed comes to realize just how nefarious the forces he’s dealing with are, his horror is all too real.
Their dialogue is contained within Mr. Wilson’s milieu, with its darkly claustrophobic, all dark sharp angles, lurid and shadowy colors and gleaming surfaces. The film’s stylization is extreme, but it also conveys an almost supernatural atmosphere. And in a sense, what Mr. Wilson’s company does is a kind of modern sorcery that Ed feels increasingly powerless against. The technology underlying it is invisible yet pervasive, and its effects are all the more chilling for how commonplace and quotidian it is.
Smart, distinctive and unnerving, TERMS AND CONDITIONS takes a darkly comic approach to something we’ve all taken for granted — scrolling through an app or service’s terms and conditions to click an agreement as quickly as possible. It takes this uniquely modern feature of everyday life and turns it into a visceral exploration of trust, abuse and power. With its clinical style, understated performances, and slow-building dread, the film lingers long after the final, ironic note — and may just remind us all to question what we’re surrendering before clicking on "I Agree" in the future.
