A Man In The Habit Of Hitting Me On The Head With An Umbrella ★★★☆☆

Review of 'A Man In The Habit Of Hitting Me On The Head With An Umbrella' which can be found here at Daily Motion.

Length: 07:23

Written & directed by Christopher Hood

Genre: Comedy

Date: 2005

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Logline: A young woman becomes strangely attached to an odd man who persistently agitate her.

Based on story of same title by Fernando Sorrentino, Charlie Rylands plays a girl who is a victim of ritual beatings by Robert Conner, the guy ramming his umbrella into her temple every five seconds.

I found watching this akin to watching a slasher film. One where you find yourself berating idiotic teenagers for going into dark rooms without turning lights on or for immediately dropping their weapon after using it only one time. For this short though, it was more like, “Why don’t you go to the police for God’s sake?” and “What are you wasting a perfectly good sandwich for?” Oh, if only it was me in that film, I’d soon stick that umbrella somewhere he’d never forget. That’s the beauty of this story, at least it’s engaging.

The protagonist is narrating her story, which she is also typing up at the very beginning. This works, but then again, it doesn’t. The dialogue is really just a big block of prose. On the one hand, this suits the theme and style. It’s a fairytale. Stuff like that gets said in fairytales. On the other hand, some of the clumsy repetitive wording can be irritating and feel like a bit of a space filler. But then again, there is a rhythm and an element to fun to it and I think this would appeal very well to children.

Another element that kids would warm to are the close up shots in the introduction. They have an intimate quality and invites the audience in. What the moral of the story is or what it’s trying to say, I’m not sure. You can get used to anything if you put up with it long enough? There’s nothing wrong with having a middle aged man poke you in your bedroom every night? There could have been the potential for a lot more hilarity with this. Her at work, on a date, or better. As it stands, there is a ton of setup with a conclusive ending but not much in the middle of it.

There are some nicely composed shots and good camera movement whenever possible. The soundtrack is mellow and unobtrusive to the narration. The budget looks fairly low but good enough to complete a fairly standard production. Performances are a bit cartoonish but this fits in well with the story and as mentioned, probably fine for the kids.

Best Bit: Scrutinizing the décor.

Worst Bit: She doesn’t just kick him in the face immediately.

Final thought: That’s a very long bridge.

Read a condensed review of this film on Twitter here.