FOLLOWING

By Marc S. Sanders

A young filmmaker scraped up six thousand dollars to make a short movie clocking in at just over an hour called Following.  The writer/director is Christopher Nolan.  While he may have been very limited on resources, his reach for imagination was already infinite at the start of his career.  Following is…well…challenging to follow, and I had to watch it twice to grasp the novel curves in time jumps and twists.  However, on my second go round I enthusiastically applaud its brilliance.  The wrap up to this short film is genius.

Gone for nearly fifty years, Alfred Hitchcock’s attempts at pursuing the questionable temptations that people undergo remain wholly intriguing.  His movies are still watched, studied, referenced, and duplicated.  Most importantly, they inspire filmmakers like Christopher Nolan.  Following leaps into its story with parallels from Rear Window and then segues into brief encounters like Strangers On A Train commits.  Mischief is at play which gradually develops into deceit and maybe murder.

Nolan makes an hour and ten minutes feel like a breezy fast moving two hours.  The script for Following throws a lot of information at you at a fast pace, which is something the famed director continued to do with the majority of his later films.  It’s to your advantage to stay alert and explore what’s shown in every frame.  Much of what comes at you will circle back for a twist or two.

Bill (Jeremy Theobold) is an unemployed writer who occupies his time by simply shadowing random people going about their lives within the streets of London.  There’s no particular reason for his behavior.  He relays to an older man that perhaps he’ll learn or become inspired by what he sees people do during their day-to-day business.  

A man in a suit carrying a large tote bag (Alex Haw) becomes Bill’s latest observation.  Bill keeps his distance and follows the man into a cafe.  As the man gets up to leave, he makes a surprising stop at Bill’s table.  He calls himself Cobb, and he has an unusual habit of his own.

Cobb demonstrates to Bill how he takes interest in learning about random people by entering their flats when they are not home.  He’s not there to necessarily burglarize.  Though he will tease the owners by planting a pair of women’s panties in their laundry or emptying their little box of knick knacks on the desk.  Maybe he’ll hide one earring to turn up later. In particular, he shows Bill how much you can learn about people by looking at how they keep their home, what they collect or what they furnish the place with.  So, how about the gentlemen pop the cork on a bottle of wine and have a chat while they stay a while.

These two strangers build a warped kind of mentality for this behavior, but as Bill becomes more natural at what Cobb has introduced him to, so do the risks become more apparent.

Following has some unusual ideas; the kind that are perverted enough to only see in the movies.  If I were to meet guys like Bill or Cobb at a bar and they started telling me of their derring do, I might excuse myself as subtly as possible.  In Christopher Nolan’s film though, I’m intrigued of what these men gain or how they entrap themselves.  

On occasion, it is hard to follow where the film turns its attention.  There are time jumps that come out of nowhere.  We see Bill with a different haircut.  At another time he has cuts on his face.  His wardrobe is different. Because of the small budget, the editing and cinematography must have suffered making these time jumps feel seamless.  So, on my first watch I was confused and wondered if the movie had some scenes cut or if I dozed off while watching it.  Then again, this is Christopher Nolan who is notorious for not keeping a straight and narrow narrative.  His well-known movies like Memento, Interstellar or Oppenheimer have all of his best tools at play to emulate different periods of time.  Following is presented in black and white and so it’s a challenge to focus on where you are in the story and where you left off.

The second time I watched the movie, it was much clearer to bridge everything together and you recognize when one twist occurs at the halfway mark followed by something else until it reaches its fascinating conclusion where every prop you see or line that was uttered serves their ulterior motives.

Following is a thrilling play on your thought process where one character might be performing a cruel sleight of hand on another.  Do not trust anything you see or hear.

Currently, Following is on You Tube and streaming on TUBI, but I had to watch with some limited commercial interruptions.  I encourage you to deal with it because Christopher Nolan’s first film shows some of the storytelling tricks he’s most appreciated for.  What you see in Memento, The Prestige or Inception was attempted early on with Following.  It was not as flashy, but it was just as inventive and brainy.

At just over an hour, Following is that perfect story to watch just after you’ve crawled under the covers and turned off the lights.  It’s a thrilling bedtime story.