Writer – director Marcos Mereles has adhered to the ethos that what will help get your debut feature film financed is to set it in a single location which after all worked well for Reservoir Dogs and here the setting for All is Vanity is a photographer’s studio. The photographer in question is played by Sid Phoenix a decent actor yet to get his deserved breakout role and here his photographer is an arrogant American cynical about his profession and the model he is about to shoot. Said model is played by Isabelle Bonfrer as a typically self-centred bored model type turning up late for the shoot with the photographers’ intern (Taseen Aroussi) doing his best to appease his boss and find out where she is. Compounding all of this is the make-up artist (Rosie Steel) who has a history of contempt for the photographer which is mutual. So all is set for plenty of friction when the four finally start the fashion shoot each has been booked for and when the intern finds a pistol in the model’s belongings fireworks seems guaranteed. We were wrong.
When one of them disappears things take a sudden and unexpected turn and that turn is not an exciting bit of unexpected story development but instead a wholly unwarranted and frankly unwanted plot twist and from there the film attempts to be in turn self-aware, deconstruct itself and takes a nod towards being a little bit meta even existential and all of it is woefully done with nothing to say in any meaningful or insightful way. All four leads turn in decent performances in what is ultimately of little interest to the audience who can be grateful that it is only 73 minutes long and even that feels longer. All is vanity? All is pretentious navel gazing
Here’s the All is Vanity trailer…….
