A narrow hallway is filled with actresses reading through an audition scene. From the sound of weeping voices it is a tear-jerker. Into the hallway steps a rotund man, who invites one of the actresses into the room to read her scene. His greeting of “Love to see it” smacks with a disingenuous force -he has no vested interest in any one of these actresses. His job is to call the actresses one by one into the room and operate the camera. In this moment, director Nick Craven and writer Jake Fallon introduce the first signs that his 13-minute short film Crying on Command is, at least in part, about a disingenuous politeness. For those that have worked in or around film, be it in front of the camera or even in film journalism, they’ll recognise the way people are inherently assigned value or a usefulness by those gatekeepers is baked into Crying on Commands DNA.
The story follows Jordyn’s (Nancy Kimball) audition, as she delivers a powerful monologue that leaves Bert (Jake Fallon), who leads the audition ecstatically confident that they’ve found their actress. In the background, to Bert’s right sits the almost silent director Emir (Raz Ayer). However, when at the last minute Jordyn is asked to cry, and she cannot, a tense exchange breaks out that suddenly turns her fortunes toward rejection.
Craven describes Jordyn as being like “a rat in an experiment”. It might be a provocative image to draw comparisons to, let alone label the audition process as a kind of laboratory experiment. But essentially, the audition process is a selective process, during which prospective actors are tested to see if they’re a fit to play the part. And Craven and Fallon hone in on this reality with a razor-sharp focus.
While Crying on Command is narratively simple, it is an emotionally layered work. Craven and Fallon capture a snapshot of a cruel and fateful blow delivered to Jordyn’s hopes and dreams. Narratively they lure the character into a false sense of security before pulling the proverbial rug out from under her. Of course, she knows a vulnerability has been exposed, and for the rest of the film we see her reeling, desperately trying to cling to the opportunity that has been retracted. Misled by her survival instincts, she oversteps professional boundaries that only accelerates the fateful blow.
Craven and Fallon tap into the psychological traits of the imposter syndrome, and general feelings of insecurity and that questioning self-doubt whether we’re good enough. What is striking about Crying on Command is the heightened tension of the drama, and the conflict that’s depicted. We might empathise and understand with Jordyn’s feelings and response, but we cannot wholly agree with the position she chooses to argue her case. Nor can we like and agree with Bert or Emir, who are rejecting the person whose shoes the film puts us in. They after all mishandle the audition, and while Bert is guilty of being disingenuous, Emir shows a viciousness, metamorphosing from a silent and ominous presence into the industry’s cruel and callous shadow complex.
This is an engaging drama about how our dreams hang by a thread, and the emotional chaos that ensues as they fall apart. Yet Craven and Fallon’s film is a challenging experience for audiences, because it challenges our ability to find an objective vantage point from which to view the interaction, and separate emotion from the way in which we read the film and psychoanalyse its character.
Crying on Command premiered at the Flicker’s Rhode Island International Film Festival.
