Ben's Home Visit

Ben's Home Visit

Bruce Von Stiers

Sophie and Ben are sister and brother. Ben doesn't have it all together. But it seems that Sophie does. Or does she really?

That is the premise for the short film Happy Returns.

Sophie goes to Ben's apartment to make sure he was okay. They end up having this long and somewhat strange conversation in Ben's kitchen.

We learn that Sophie is pregnant, Ben's girlfriend moved out and he's had to take on a roommate. A remembrance of Ben once riding a Metro bike out to Westchester to their parent's house is brought up. Ben wants Sophie and their mom not to treat him like the family screwup.

But then we find out that Sophie's husband has kind of checked out things regarding the pregnancy. And that today is her birthday. Ben's does attempt to give Sophie a birthday gift as an afterthought, but that doesn't go well.

Happy Returns might be considered the middle film of a trilogy. I don't know if the people involved with this film intended it to be or not. In the film, Ben references seeing his old college girlfriend recently. This is the plot of a film titled Birthday Party. And the third film is titled Fine. In that film, Jess, Ben's college girlfriend, shows up at Sophie's place for a birthday party. I recently reviewed Fine, so this kind fills in some of the backstory for me.

Rosemary Brownlow is Sophie. She was in episodes of Unusual Suspect and Ravenwolf Towers. She also repeated her role as Sophie in the film I just mentioned, Fine.

Zak Houston is Ben. He co-starred in The Birthday Party with Leslie Lank, who played Jess. Lank wrote the screenplay for this film, Happy Returns, and the other two films I mentioned.

Travis Emery Hackett directed the film. He previously was a still photographer for a couple of films.

Happy Returns is a comedy yet has a bit of disjointed drama. Ben and Sophie deeply care for each other as siblings. But you can't help but see that Sophie considers Ben to be the family screwup. And that is something he's trying to get past, so he's been limiting access to himself from the family. I liked this film, but kind of wished I'd seen all the films in proper order to get the proper sense of the characters and the complete storyline.

Happy Returns is an official selection for this year's upcoming Santa Clarita International Film Festival.

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