- Ben
Sean Ellis’ full length 2006 movie is based on his 2004 Academy Award nominated short of the same title. The movie has a gentle tone punctuated with a wonderful sense humor and surrealism.
Cashback is the story of an art student named Ben. Ben’s been dumped by his girlfriend Suzy and is dealt a killer hand of insomnia. With a new found abundance of free time, he takes a 3rd shift position at a local supermarket. As he says it, he gives them his extra time and they give him cash back.
Along the way we meet a colorful cast of eccentric characters and a new love interest in the form of a co-worker. It’s not a terribly original series of events, but that isn’t the point is it. The journey, as told and experienced by Ben is the real purpose of the story. And in that sense it’s a success. Consider Ben’s ability to freeze time. While earning his cash back, Ben routinely freezes time, undresses women, and draws them before redressing them and unfreezing time. This habit of Ben’s has drawn understandable critiques that the movie dwells too much in gratuitous nudity (there are many a-breast shown throughout). But Ben is an art student. The female form as he describes it is a thing of beauty, something to behold in wonder. How much mileage that goes with viewers I’m sure will vary. But I believe that more important than the nudity is Ben’s ability; it’s an endearing tool that Ellis uses creatively. We are never truly sure if Ben is in fact actually freezing time or if we are just seeing the world as he does: a world at a slow enough pace to stop and take time to sketch.
See Cashback. It's dope.
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