FILMENATOR - My Candid Take on Movies from Around the Globe

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Cashback (2006) : An Offbeat Romance

August 21st 2011 08:26

Cashback (2006) is a quirky romantic comedy (but possibly best described as an art film) starring Hollywood newcomer Sean Biggerstaff and Emilia Fox.

Story of Cashback
After going through a traumatic break up with his long time gilrfriend and art school classmate, budding artist Ben Willis suddenly starts suffering from insomnia. When his repeated efforts to fall asleep fails, Ben decides to use his sleepness to his advantage and earn some extra cash working the night-shift at a departmental store under the strict supervision of a totalitarian (but not unkind) boss Steve Jenkins. There he meets with another bunch of nocturnal men and women each, like him, a million miles away from their respective dreams and trying to take life in their strides. But, by some cruel whim of fate it appears that the more these people want time to fly the seconds just draw on for ever giving them entire lifetimes to ponder over their troubled lives each night. But, as Ben soon discovers each of his coworkers have managed to find a way to get some relief from this mental torture and he too manages to find his 'art' of defying time--just pretend that it has stopped and pretend that everyone and everything is in a time freeze except himself. This also give Ben a great oppurtunity to appreciate the beuty of the female form and 'use' his female customers for nude models. But with the passage of time he gradually falls in love with the checkout girl Sharon Pintey. Will this new muse and love interest be his newfound ticket to snorecity?

Review of Cashback
Cashback is based on its namesake short film and offers a really unusual and fresh romantic comedy. In fact, as I have already mentioned it is

unconventional to the point of being regarded amost as an art film! The entire concept is very novel and some great camera works (not to mention beautiful actresses) make the time freeze scenes very pleasant. Sean Biggerstaff is also very good in front of the camera and continues to impress throughout the entire length of the movie.

Further, to the directors credit the comic elements in Cashback (despite the high amount of nudity in the film) are seldom crude and always manages to tickle a funnybone.

But, like many art films, (and unlike most Christopher Nolan fims) the realistic/logic part of Cashback doesnot really stand upto a closer no-frills examination and at times seems to be breaking its own rules (over and above the laws of nature and science) and I found it to be a rather glaring defect in an otherwise flawless movie.

A quick look at IMDB will tell you that people are absolutely drooling over this Sean Ellis film and while I will freely admit that it is a novel and not unpleasant visual experience it is a touch too abstract for a hardcore realist like myself!

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