Becca Usoff

I have to imagine that anyone giving this more than one star has never seen a movie before and is thus impressed that the written words in a story can not only be read aloud but recorded on video for posterity. If you are one of the lucky few who has seen a film before, you will be mystified, as I was, as to why someone who is ostensibly familiar with the concept of cinema and the capacity of cameras to capture human body movements and facial expressions would decide that the best way to portray this story is to have otherwise impressive actors read verbatim from the book while staring at the camera and moving as little as possible. If you would like to recreate the experience of watching this short film yourself, I advise that you get a copy of Roald Dahl's original story, stand in front of a mirror, and read it without emotion at 1.5x the regular speed, while someone slowly moves props around behind you. It doesn't really matter whether or not they are related to the story.