Shortbread (2024) – 2.5 stars

Director: Andy S. McEwan

Writer: Andy S. McEwan

Cast: Tony Hamilton, Anne-Marie Feeney, Maisie MacDonald, Andy S. McEwan

Running time: 6mins

In the two films which have come IFL’s way since the gloriously silly Autumn Never Dies, one thing has become increasingly clear. Chris Quick is wasted on just the editing function. He took a back-seat for the comedic misfire that was Care and Repair, and having done so again, his dynamism is again sorely missed in Shortbread.

Quick’s partner from Autumn Never Dies, Andy S. McEwan, takes the reins as both the film’s sole script writer and its director – and aside from a couple of flashes of refreshing absurdity, serves up a mundane story, awash with tired, outdated clichés.

From the outset, it is clear what we will be in for. If the first 20 seconds of a meagre six-minute running time consist of someone parking their Renault Clio in a quiet suburb, it hardly foreshadows a riotous comedic outing. When this is followed by middle-aged divorcee Tam struggling to communicate with his ‘teenage’ children because one is listening to heavy metal (in 2024) or because they are a shuffling stereotype ripped from a mid-90s Harry Enfield sketch (McEwan ill-advisedly plays Paul, his face enveloped by a hoody, but his body unmistakenly the hulking frame of a grown man rather than a self-conscious teen), that is confirmed.

As Tam, actor Tony Hamilton does manage to give off the energy of the world’s most divorced man – something perhaps helped by him seemingly cosplaying as notorious transphobe Graham Linehan – and to his credit, he very much comes across as a man who you would want to legally sever yourself from. Every line comes with a kind of slimy passive-aggression – giving the impression he has plenty of nasty things to say, but does not have the guts to say them directly. When his ex-wife Michelle (Anne-Marie Feeney, who does well to present a strong and patient persona here) approaches the car to ask why he was late bringing the kids back after the weekend, it doesn’t take long for some of this spite to seep out.

Initially the pair trade barbs over the titular shortbread, which has caused Tam’s lateness – stuck behind an old time-waster in the supermarket. If the film’s battle-lines had remained drawn on this wonderfully petty squabble, then it might have been a lot easier to find Tam endearing rather than grotesque – which would be helpful considering he is the main character. But it does not last. When Michelle suggests Tam should stop taking the children swimming, because Paul “can’t swim”, and Mary (the daughter, played by Maisie MacDonald is confusingly credited as Zoe) is “uncomfortable in her swimming suit”, the world’s most divorced man wastes no time in using the opportunity to both say something creepy about his youngest, and something misogynistic about his ex-wife. After all, why would his daughter be ashamed of her body, he asks Michelle, when “she has your figure” – something he grins at fondly, before following up with “before you had the kids.”

Righteously, McEwan’s script does then allow Michelle to hit Tam where it hurts – informing him he could “afford to lose a few pounds” himself, while grabbing and smashing the packet of shortbread he has left sitting on his dashboard. “Look what you’ve done” he shrieks, immediately regressing to the sulking stature of a toddler who’s dropped his ice-cream cone. It’s one of the funniest moments of the film – but feels like it should be the first of a couple of more major comeuppances for this unmitigated jerk. And it doesn’t feel like the second underwritten event in this story lives up to that.

Taking pity on Tam, Michelle invites him for a drink and chat later in the week. However, what she sees as an opportunity to bury the hatchet, and simply provide a more cordial environment for their shared offspring, he sees as a clear and obvious opportunity to have sex. The film hard-cuts to what is supposed to be later in the week (but the shining sun and shifting shadows of the house suggest was filmed later that same day), and Tam being unceremoniously booted out of the house – sans trousers. With Michelle fully clothed as she hurls his jeans (which have more shortbread crumbled in the pocket) at him, it appears that he had barely crossed the threshold before beginning to disrobe, due to his bizarre belief that she was “gagging for it”.

It is a horrendously rushed finale – which, whatever the actual intent was, ultimately underscores Tam as an irredeemably horrible man Tam. And in that context, it makes it utterly bizarre to leave the film’s final joke in his hands. With Michelle threatening to call the police if he does not immediately leave, he struggles to gain entry to his Clio – because the keys she has thrown out with his jeans “aren’t even my keys”. It’s the kind of shrug-and-sigh ending you would normally attribute to a character who is a relatable buffoon – but precisely how Tam is supposed to be relatable, and to whom, is a troubling question all of its own.

It does not help that the utilitarian presentation of the film provides no distraction from the action, such as it is. Flat shot scenes provide us with the bare minimum of information, with cinematographer Big JCS having apparently been given no time to find any angle for artistic flair. Meanwhile, the sound-engineering they have provided seems to largely focus on trying not to have the actors’ dialogue drowned out by the cacophonous bird-song echoing through the suburbs on that gloriously sunny day.

Perhaps it is unfair to keep comparing this film to others – but it really does warrant thinking about just how this project falls in comparison to Autumn Never Dies. That film used a fluffy ostrich and monkey puppet to say something about real life trauma, through an absurdist lens – with clear motivations and contexts informing its jokes, however ridiculous they seemed. In contrast, Shortbread is a depressingly unimaginative masquerade of ‘reality’ informed by a set of uninspired stereotypes, which fails to present a meaningful point of view on any of its characters – in a way that means a lot of its humour falls flat.