An audience favorite at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival (according to IMDB), Charles Burmeister’s intriguing and painfully real slice of life centers around a young man who fails to make a worthy impression during a job interview and afterwards has to face his girlfriend’s questions regarding his decision to wear a wrinkled and striped cotton shirt and his unwillingness to “play the game” of corporate America. Succinct yet easily compelling, Interview doesn’t suffer from the preciousness of some short films that try to squeeze too much plot in a limited amount of time or worry about wrapping things up neatly. It feels like a typical day in the life of young men and women who struggle with the idea of growing up, turning into an office drone and actors Mark Kelly and Courtney Thomas are immediately believable in their roles as writer/director Burmeister is careful not to assign blame on either party and just let the events unfold naturally. The brief piece shows promise of things to come as Burmeister, a graduate of the M.F.A. Screenwriting program at the University of Texas where he received the James A. Michener Fellowship also recently won the Chesterfield Screenwriting Fellowship sponsored by Paramount Pictures for whom he is making his next feature film.
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