The Groundsman is a Fifteen-minute dramatic short film written and directed by the Scottish cinematographer Jonny Blair. This multi award nominated short features the experienced David O'Hara as the lead character named Keith, a Scottish groundsman who struggles to come to terms with his local football club going out of business. Blair as this being his first featured short film has used effective storytelling through simple yet effective camera work and editing. With an estimated budget of £3,000 provided by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, the team that surrounded 'The Groundsman" have outdone themselves, the cinematic look the director achieved is remarkable considering his experience. The script for the piece doesn't include much dialogue and what dialogue it does seems mostly improvised, however this does not take away from the general storytelling. Blair chooses to place the audience around the characters life, so we are taken to see all his flaws and imperfections. The Groundsman is a successful short film because it creates an easy to follow yet intriguing tale. Right from the start we are welcomed through the door to Keith's world or spiritual home in a sense. The Groundskeeper Keith is working through is morning routines, preparing the club for the days play. This all seems like quite mundane work however somewhat meaningful to Keith, especially after the first goal is scored. The plot begins to unravel when Keith arrives to the club the next morning only to find that it has gone broke and is no longer his place of work. We then see Keith struggle to come to terms with this fact, which leads him to the drink, something the director wants us to know has been a problem for Keith in the past. After watching old VHS tapes of past memories Keith is reminded of his family, which is visually hard for Keith to watch, this is an essential part of the script because in my option without this insight the film becomes a touch impersonal. This forces Keith to try and change, by breaking the padlock and letting himself back into the club the director shows the audience Keith is trying not about to let something else that he loves be taken away. While doing maintenance around the club Keith keeps running into roadblocks that stop him from completing his task, this leads him back to the pub where his frustration continues to build. Eventually this is too much for Keith to handle forcing him to walk home intoxicated, this leads to the climax of the movie where all of the characters built up rage and emotion spoils over, executed phenomenally by David O'Hara. In the Final scenes we are now given the opportunity to watch as Keith begin to clean his house of all the rubbish and spiritually getting rid of the baggage he has been carrying. Keith is constantly trying to hold on to any ties he has to the now bankrupt football club, however the director challenges him and the audience to let go of the past and move forward. Blair promotes the idea of celebrating the past instead of being held back from our emotional ties. In my opinion The Groundsman can draw comparisons to a feature film such as The Wrestler, especially in regards to storytelling. Overall The Groundsman is an exceptional dramatic short film, from a director who has already shown a knack for storytelling at a young age.
2 Reviews
A little melodramatic, but has a good base of realism
bob the moo26 December 2014
When a very low league football club shuts its doors, it hits the groundsman, and former player, Keith hard. Unable to let go of his job he returns to the ground to paint it up, lay out shirts, tend the pitch, and all the usual tasks. With the board accepting that the club is now over, Keith struggles to get over his loss.
I think for all humans there must be something in our brains that give us comfort in routine and ritual – things that we can do that give us a feeling of security and perhaps control; in many cases people call these hobbies or religion, but essentially the base element is the same. Another place to retreat to is sport, and for men in particular it is not unusual to see people who would not cry at the funeral of their own parents, but would weep with anguish because a 0-0 draw away to Tamworth means their team will be going down this season. These two aspects of avoidance and seeking out faux-emotional safety are both touched on in this short film and it is the familiarity and honesty of these things that makes it work pretty well.
Keith (well played by O'Hara), is typically dour and escapes into drink, sport and work to get away from anything else outside of those things – although from what we see there is little else, which is part of his ultimate problem. With the loss of the club (his glory days, his current work routine, his hobby and his passion), he is forced to confront feelings of loss and it is clear these are feelings he has mostly been trying to avoid confronting. As this unfolds the film does get a little melodramatic a bit too quickly for me, and I did think it could have been a bit more subtle in how it plays the parallels out, but it does still work and I appreciated that O'Hara and the overall production limited the feeling of it being soapy, even if they didn't totally manage it.
It is the base of realism that sells it, although the revelations and the pouring out of pent up emotion did give it an air of melodrama that it didn't aim for but didn't guard against; although the overall product is still good.
I think for all humans there must be something in our brains that give us comfort in routine and ritual – things that we can do that give us a feeling of security and perhaps control; in many cases people call these hobbies or religion, but essentially the base element is the same. Another place to retreat to is sport, and for men in particular it is not unusual to see people who would not cry at the funeral of their own parents, but would weep with anguish because a 0-0 draw away to Tamworth means their team will be going down this season. These two aspects of avoidance and seeking out faux-emotional safety are both touched on in this short film and it is the familiarity and honesty of these things that makes it work pretty well.
Keith (well played by O'Hara), is typically dour and escapes into drink, sport and work to get away from anything else outside of those things – although from what we see there is little else, which is part of his ultimate problem. With the loss of the club (his glory days, his current work routine, his hobby and his passion), he is forced to confront feelings of loss and it is clear these are feelings he has mostly been trying to avoid confronting. As this unfolds the film does get a little melodramatic a bit too quickly for me, and I did think it could have been a bit more subtle in how it plays the parallels out, but it does still work and I appreciated that O'Hara and the overall production limited the feeling of it being soapy, even if they didn't totally manage it.
It is the base of realism that sells it, although the revelations and the pouring out of pent up emotion did give it an air of melodrama that it didn't aim for but didn't guard against; although the overall product is still good.
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