Cooler heads prevail, or so the saying goes. And sometimes, the unexpected tests that sentiment.
Two brothers (played by Luca and Giacomo Killough) are sitting on their patio late one night, with one enjoying a smoke while the other insists on conversation to clear the air. Out of nowhere, a scraggly man (Joseph Mannion) dressed in black hops their fence and lands square in their yard, causing a heated scramble. Who is this intruder? Is he intruding at all? Those answers are up to the brothers and you, the audience, to discover.
The Wrong Garden keeps things simple, with its dialogue and premise benefiting from fast pacing. Writer/director Francesco Killough has an obvious grasp of his fundamentals, with the screenplay being clearly written for characters the filmmaker is deftly familiar with. But the short lacks a story, or at the very least, a confident trajectory for its narrative. Mannion’s “burglar” never seems to truly plead his case, and the two brothers don’t amount to much beyond plain bickering and playful spite towards their surprise guest.
When all is said and done, we are left wondering what the entire point of the film really is. Is Killough trying to make a case for how homeowners respond to trespassers? Neighborhood decency? Self-aware satire, given the younger brother breaks the fourth wall at one point? Maybe all three? If there was ever a short that needed to spend a few extra minutes to explain itself, it would be this one, because not much sticks with you after the credits roll.
Frustratingly, you might actually end up wanting to rewind the film, skimming it to see if there was something you missed. To search for something more meaningful hidden between the lines. Killough doesn’t get his point across, if there ever was one to begin with. What we are left with is a confusingly uneventful six minutes, with only brief flickers of what could have been.
