Why I am in a Box

Why Am I In A Box?

Human Drama

Silent-But-Deadly Productions

R1 DVD

At first I found the slow-moving beginning of this film to be quite boring. The characters were shallow nonentities, the action such as it was seemed pointless. But as the characters were fleshed out my interest built. The story picked up speed, too, and by the end of the film I had changed my opinion.

The plot is simple but gives the cast good opportunities to show their talents. It revolves around Ellen, an aspiring writer who gave up writing to support her unsuccessful writer boyfriend Ted, and Jeremy, a video store shop assistant who fancies himself as an aspiring artist.

Ellen is kidnapped by Paige, a demented unsuccessful writer who just wants to write a good story that won’t be rejected by publisher after publisher. She threatens Ellen – write a good story that she can put her name on, or die. Now that Ellen is compelled to write she finds that she is stuck. Paige explains that she has no life experience to draw on and that’s why her writing lacks credibility. Paige will free her for a lunch date if she can crack onto Jeremy. This will introduce Ellen to the stresses of cheating on her boyfriend, starting a new relationship instead of just drifting into one, and the imminent danger of punishment if she should fail. She manages to get Jeremy to lunch but then flees at the last minute as the tensions overwhelm her.

Surprisingly Paige’s scheme works. Ellen writes some odd words at first, then they just seem to come tumbling out. Will it satisfy Paige?

Meanwhile Jeremy and Ted are trying to find her. Ted is interviewed by a sort of pop detective, Lydecker, who seems more interested in how Ted and Ellen started their relationship. Here we find that Ted has drifted into the relationship with Ellen without realizing that he cares for her. She has given up her future career to earn money to support them both. The possibility that she is now having an affair with another man finally breaks through his lassitude and forces him to make decisions about Ellen and his life. Jeremy, too, is starting to show interest in Ellen so they work together to track her down. Ellen’s disappearance has raised their awareness of their situations to a new level.

Silent-But-Deadly Productions, owned by Rachel Grubb (who plays Ellen) and Brooke Lemke (who plays the role of women in the film industry”. If this is the standard of their work then we will see much more of them. I last saw Rachel Grubb in Christopher Mihm’s SF spoof “Cave Women on Mars”. The nature of the film did not give her much to work with, but in this film she shows far more skill. In spite of this it is Brooke Lemke whose strong performance carries the plot.

The film has a good range of the usual extras plus two short films, Young Eyes and A Broken Family.

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