Hi Santa, it's Charlie

My goodness, what a film. Brilliant script and performance on this. The simple execution feels like cheating but it's also feels like the exact perfect way to tell this story so I hope the judges don't mark them down on it. Supurb mahi team.

Ah, this really felt like there were only 2 jokes!
1: making fun of... People who like trains?
2: he keeps calling Santa.

It was just quite long! The same 2 jokes for 5 minutes! I think it would have shone a lot more either if there was an escalation towards the end, or if it was simply a couple minutes shorter.

Regarding Felix's comment, I think the fact it was so long was really the joke. It was enjoyably painful to watch Charlie just keep going on far too long about such a ridiculous thing. I was really impressed with how it was filmed in such a small number of takes, it is difficult to act for such long takes convincingly. It broke all the rules of what is a good film, and that was the point - it was still fun to watch and somehow not boring, when it really should have become boring after such an extended time in each take and such a simple story. Somehow it just worked.

Ho ho ho boy. This was a real delight for me. This is sooooooo niche, but it took me back to my second year of film school, where Olly showed Fisi and I a short film about calling winz, and also greenpeace? Or maybe he was trying to pay off a parking ticket on the lowest repayments possible? Either way, it was a similar format with a long uncut phone call, and minimal camera movement, and it was SO fun to watch the same concept many years later. Fuck its funny. Its SOOOOO kiwi. Obviously its not for everyone, and in many ways I would put this into the category of ‘punishing jokes’ that are designed to torture the audience. If less is more, then this is the MOST. You have peaked in the pursuit of minimalism, and the time for MAXIMALISM has come. Olax, please please please, next year go all out, swing for the fences, and make a crazy shootout with blood, guts and gore. Chop someone's head off. Run them over with a car. Fight a demonic Monchhichi. Buy the miniature train set and blow it up in the backyard. Herms Heroes it, I beg! I want to see chaos, Olax style.

This film has been stuck in my head all day. To me it feels like a modern retelling of the Greek myth of Sisyphus, who was condemned to eternally push a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back down.

In my mind the main character as a boy sat on his mothers lap as she held the phone to his ear and asked him "would you like Santa to get you Percy or Thomas?" and ever since that moment he's been stuck in eternal loop of indecision to the point where he's imagined that he has formed a close bond with Santa's entire extended family.

Honestly brilliant thought provoking stuff.

Basically a sitcom subplot edited together into a five minute sketch that lives or dies on its lead performance but thankfully that lead performance is good. Only suggestion is that the actor ditch the outrageous and frankly very disrespectful haircut - maybe the most disrespectful movie haircut since Tom Cruise in M:I-2. Great sound and lighting squandered by lack of ambition - come on folks, one entry this year had a SKI CHASE, and here you are turning in a grand total of three shots filmed in what can only be described as a squalid starter home.

A quaint vignette. Some moments of vulnerability that I really liked. The audience were lapping it up.

At first glance, this film felt like it was dragging out for too long. But then you start to appreciate the purposeful characteristics of the film the more you break it down. You'll either love this, or you'll hate this film and I think I'm leaning more towards loving it. Its simplistic nature in storytelling by prompting the audience to suffer with Charlie over something so trivial in a way is the film's greatest strength. This film shouldn't work, but it does. It's a film with its own charm that works if you watch it with the right perspective. Overall, great work.

Charlie calls Santa to make sure his model train order is correct, before calling back again, and again...

This little film blew me away. With such a simple premise that could be construed as comedic, I found this short a beautiful, heart-wrenching character study on one man's loneliness and search for connection, a search he can only find in calling the Santa hotline.

The use of just a singular shot for the majority of the film was a bold choice, but one that absolutely paid off - just reinforcing that isolation, that desperate bid for connection, and as an audience we get sucked in to the loneliness of Charlie. I simply just couldn't look away despite how much I wanted to!
Charlie absolutely knocks it out of the park with his acting here too, with only one shot this film needed to be carried by the actors, and my god did he hit the mark!

Judging by the reviews here this film could be seen as divisive, but for me this film absolutely hit the mark, it's bold in its storytelling and its choices, and I think this is perfect for the city finals!

What got my attention:
Charlie Gates, completely suited to this part, gives a great performance.

Take it or Leave it:
It is deliberately one-note I know, and the central running joke is the running joke but damn if it isn’t tedious to watch. I guess we are supposed to experience it this way. So we relate to Charlie given his compulsive, relentless nature or do we feel Santa’s frustration? (hey kids, he’s just going to delete these messages) For mine, I don’t feel a damn thing for Charlie; he’s barely likeable and there’s no character journey or change if that’s your thing. Grown man on phone to Santa – rinse and repeat until the inevitable “Final Charlie” trope (he was always going to call him one more time). Holiday movie because it’s set at Xmas? Does sometime before Xmas even count? Is that a holiday or even the start of the holiday period? I don’t know; genre is a bit loose everywhere. There's a snow globe so I guess it’s enough – worked for Die Hard.

Final thoughts:
Pretty light on any sort of story. You have to gel with the idea that this guy is so OCD that he’d keep calling Santa and then try and believe he’s making some progress with that and by association with his OCD. Except he doesn’t so nothing’s changed. And the audience laughs – ho, ho, ho. Made the final and expect Charlie Gates to get the performance gong. Nice Olax…once more!

Holy moly at first I thought you had genuinely tried to remake the 2017 national runner up.

https://www.48hours.co.nz/screening-room/2017/auckland/a-friend-for-life/

Only this is more forelorn and raw. Though not quite as impactful to say the least.

Honestly it didn't work for me and that probably is because of the 2017 national runner up. I felt the singularity and obsessiveness and loneliness was clear from the start and the one shot created a void of disconnect between myself as a viewer.

I also feel like the one way conversation and static imagery just felt I was being talked at rather than engaged with as a viewer.

Certainly different I'll give you that and 48 sure can be a fun playground to try new forms, but I felt to elevate the film a bit more there should have been more than just the calls. Something that either drove the calls or that led to a payoff for the viewer. But that's just me.

This film is genius. My favourite that I've seen in this year's comp. Love (and am only semi surprised by) how divisive it's proving.

This is the best one. This is it. I don’t care that you didn’t win, this is the best film hahahaha.

It was so high on our first viewing, and then on second, third, fourth viewing it just got higher and higher, and before heats even began, we had this locked in as the one we wanted to see win. But alas, we weren’t judges, and even if we were, our picks wouldn’t have shifted the results in any dramatic way.

As much as I respect everyone above who may have indifference to this one (except for Breadwinner’s outrageous suggestion that you should lose the hair - that take is criminal), the fact is that in a sea of stories being too convoluted, over-ambitious, squished and squandered, here we have this earnest, humble, simple story. A moment in time where you see a man tormented by his ambition for something great rubbing up against his desire to just be happy no matter what. This is Paterson meets Merry Christmas Mr Bean, and it’s the best film in Christchurch hahahaha. I haven’t had a chance to watch any other regional entries yet, but I’m calling it now that this is the best film in Aotearoa, I’m willing to bet my Disney Infinity collection that it could not just make the Grand Finals - but maybe even surpass our Chch winners. Yep, I said it, that’s how much I love this film hahahaha. And I know many will think I’m dreaming here, but when one can dream, one must dream!!

If this was a full-length feature, this would be the most rewatched moment. Perhaps that’s part of why I love it so much - it feels so lived in. There was story for Charlie before this moment, and there will be story after. But even within these five minutes, despite it being only two shots, there is SO much going on inside Charlie. How dare it be suggested that it’s light on story when you have distinct moments of change in Charlie’s position about the train model: a confident start where he knows what he wants, followed by seeds of doubt that kick off as soon as he messes up the second call, and then a coming to terms with realising that it just doesn’t matter, and that it’s going to be great, whatever size the train is.

Obviously, a story like this does require a strong performance to pull it off, but I reject any suggestion that it’s a “shame they had to lean on that” - as if we’re not meant to be encouraging teams to lean into their biggest strengths! Charlie was amazing. The dialogue delivery is inspired, the voice is perfectly suited to this character, and the *physical comedy* (yeah I said it, fight me), while restrained to accommodate the calmness of the scene, is so incredibly intentional. Pair this with a beautiful production setup, a charming and proper use of the holiday genre, and you have yourself the best film in Christchurch hahahahaha GUYS I CAN’T STOP SAYING IT HELP ME.

I guess I should do a nitpick to offset all this love — a creative decision I would have cut if I was directing is the final call back at the end. While a fun gag, I felt it did the character a disservice as far as him really coming to terms with and accepting his model train–size fate. But hey, it worked for the crowd, so who really cares, I don’t care anymore, my manager role is complete and I’m feeling chaotic. Did I mention this is the best film in Christchurch?

I do really like that it’s divisive to be honest. A film that has half the crowd declaring it tedious and the other half calling it genius? These are the things that make a community like this really tick. When we come together to see how others see things, whether they make sense to us or not, the most important thing is we have opportunities like the one Olax has provided to engage in these debates, hear each other out, and go away from them hopefully learning something. We need films that have the risk this one took, films that make a choice so bold they stick forever. And that’s the thing — this film will stick. You’re another example of the kind of bold choice one can make that leaves a lasting imprint on the future of the competition (alongside Singularities set design, I MetaMans genre twist and Toot Toots 24 hour film comp method)

One can nitpick about story arcs or joke escalation or whatever else, but for me this is one of those rare pieces where the purity of the idea and the boldness of the execution outweigh everything else. This is why I watch 48Hours. This is why I will keep coming back forever.

THE BEST THING: hehehehebestfilminchristchurch2025factsarefactsgetoverit

THE NEXT THING: Can we have a series titled ‘Charlie Calls’ please? 10 phone calls all roughly 3-5 minutes long. Different seasons and events. Different people Charlie is leaving a message for. I have a draft for you already. Episode 1 you’ve already made and it’s perfect. Then we move to a call to the council to dispute a $3.17 fee over something Charlie was tracking himself, maybe his water usage. Then Episode 3 he’s calling his local airline to check if he can bring his own kettle or vacuum cleaner on board the plane. Episode 4 he can call a pizza shop to order his favourite garlic bread but he’s unsure if that’s allowed cause it’s not really a meal. Episode 5 he can call a vet to see if humans can get worming tables (inspired by me looking at a photo of my doggo just now). Episode 6 We could do maybe another festive one like the easter bunny asking about some sort of obscure egg delivery need or New Years day and he’s trying to get in touch with someone who oversees timezones to confirm some unusual detail idk I’m running out of ideas here. Episode 7 he leaves an order for the fish and chip shop with specifics about his fish needs that are more complex than his model train needs. Episode 8 he wants to leave feedback to a bus company about their bus drivers. Episode 9 he calls the EntX theatre in Christchurch to reserve an ice cream for his movie going experience annnnnddd finally for Episode 10 he’s leaving a message for his mum. I’m not kidding around here by the way, make this please. We’ll fund it somehow. I’m not joking.