When faced with an impossible decision, how would you go about making it? Keith (Stephen Curry) and his wife Justine (Sibylla Budd) rush to a middle-of-nowhere clinic when their two children, Patrick (Chris Labbett) and Emily (Imogen Labbett), suffer near-fatal snake bites. The doctor (Tony Briggs) and his nurse Sam (Maria Angelico) do what they can, but a search of their facility turns up only one vial of anti-venom. With only fifteen minutes to decide, the two parents must make a difficult choice. Will it be Patrick or Emily who gets to live? Nick Russell’s Tribeca-selected work clocks in at just 5 minutes, but boy does it make excellent use of that runtime!
The second Russell’s short begins, intensity pulsates off the screen. With a situation this dire, the frantic pace really makes it feel like every second matters. Then, as soon as Sam pulls out the single vial of anti-venom and confronts the parents with it, a sinking feeling of desperation hits. Yet things are not as they seem, and the film has a bombshell to drop on its viewers, courtesy of Curry’s brilliant comedic timing and a stellar screenplay by Russell and Nick Musgrove.
Your enjoyment of Favourites will hinge on the punchline, and as abrupt as it may be, the fallout is thoroughly felt. The cast is terrific, but Curry absolutely steals the show as Keith, shining in even the most uncomfortable moments.
The mere idea of having favourites is something we’re all familiar with, but director Nick Russell deconstructs this idea with a bitingly funny take on a family crisis.
