From Omeleto.
Two friends go camping.
THE RALLY is used with permission from Jake Ringsell. Learn more at https://jakeringsell.com.
Renata is terminally ill but has summoned enough energy to go on a camping trip with her best friend, Sam. The two go for hikes, sleep in tents and sit around fires talking, but the weight of Renata’s illness is always there.
But on the trip, Renata’s fragile health suddenly takes a positive turn. She has more strength and energy and seems like the Renata of old. But Sam grows increasingly suspicious, leading Renata to a difficult realization.
Directed by Jake Ringsell from a script written by Amadeus Redha, this tender, quietly moving short drama captures a poignant moment in two women’s friendship, confronting the big questions of life as they reach a painful transition in their lives. With its subjects of terminal illness, it has a gentle somberness in its tone, handled poetically through the film’s graceful visual naturalism. But even as Renata’s life fades, there is still beauty, nature, and friendship to experience, made all the more precious to Renata and Sam knowing that it may be the last.
The storytelling quickly establishes Renata’s extenuating circumstances: her cancer, her suffering during chemo, which she’s since stopped, and her friendship with Sam. Despite the gravity of the situation, though, the film isn’t mired in depression. The loveliness of the cinematography, unhurried flow of the editing and delicacy of the musical score enclose both young women in a bubble, unmarked by intrusions like technology, schedules or the outside world. It’s a lovely bubble, full of friendship, nature, conversation, laughs and the pureness of human connection; the scenes of them simply lying in the fields looking up at clouds have a poignant innocence to them. When Renata seems to get a burst of energy, untroubled by pain, fatigue or nausea, the friends take advantage of it, making for a quietly rhapsodic interlude.
As Renata, actor Kat Collings is deeply affecting, playing the cheerful, positive and witty young woman and not the disease. As her friend Sam, actor Aine Rose Daly is understated in her sturdiness and solidity. Even when Renata tells her that she can run a marathon, she is skeptical, but she’s happy to accompany her friend on the small but lovely adventures that she can finally appreciate again. But underneath it all, Renata is coming to a piercing realization, full of sadness and yet deep appreciation for all that she has in the moment.
Inspired by the writer’s own journey with cancer, THE RALLY is like a faded vintage snapshot from years past, capturing a beautiful moment in life whose meaning only becomes fully apparent with the passage of time and life. Those passages, of course, include death. As Renata confronts it — like anyone else with a serious or terminal illness does — it becomes a great clarifier, giving both a sadness of not having enough time and an appreciation of the preciousness of the time we have left to us. That time is filled here with grace, love and the beauty of the ordinary world, made all the more moving for its brief and fleeting nature.
