CRASHING | Omeleto

A young woman wakes up in hospital with no memory of the accident.


CRASHING is used with permission from Alex Salam. Learn more at https://alexsalam.com.


Amanda wakes up in hospital with no memory of how she got there. She's been in a terrible accident, which she also can't remember at all. Her mother is there, waiting, concerned and worried.

When the doctor arrives in the room, Amanda hears some tragic news, and her world unravels. But as she grapples with the devastation, what emerges is even more heartbreaking in ways that Amanda cannot even fathom.

Directed and written by Alex Salam, this hauntingly poignant short drama seems at first to be a straightforward, well-crafted naturalistic narrative capturing the aftermath of a terrible accident and how it changes one woman's world. Confined to few characters and one room, it is like many other two-handers that use the intimacy of the setting and characters to go deep into psychological terrain, often resulting in a powerful emotional viewing experience. But through restrained, patient storytelling and powerful performances, the film's simplicity reveals more layers than initially meets the eyes and ears, building up to a heartwrenching reveal.

Rendered in cool, almost antiseptic lighting, muted colors and rhythms that feel disorienting and uncomfortable at times, viewers first meet Amanda in closeup, revealing the damage of the accident she's been in. She is unconscious, but soon awakens, disoriented and stunned. She has no memory of what happened, but she soon learns the particulars, at first from her mother sleeping by the bedside. The storytelling is on the quieter side, but as Amanda slowly learns of what's happened, the emotional intensity builds.

The situation is distressing, and when Amanda learns the fate of her daughters after the accident, she's devastated. Actor Marie Everett conveys the sharpness of shock and loss with a wrenching directness, portraying what is likely Amanda's worst moment in life. But then, even in her grief, she reveals the extent of her amnesia -- one that poses a quandary for her mother, who now finds Amanda and her trapped in a cruel loop imposed by Amanda's damaged memory. Played beautifully by actor Heather Coombs, Amanda's mother becomes the crux of the narrative's key turn, as she decides on how to care for and console Amanda going forward.

Watching Amanda's mother make that decision and play it out makes for a quietly wrenching conclusion in CRASHING, rooted in equal parts love, pity and compassion, and underlining the rich, painful emotional complexity beneath the film's sparse, almost minimalist surface. It's a decision that a mother makes for a daughter who is also a mother -- and therefore understands the trauma that would have to be endured, again and again, otherwise.