BLOODY HELL (JANE AUSTEN'S PERIOD DRAMA)

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JANE AUSTEN'S PERIOD DRAMA

In 1995, Scottish actor Peter Capaldi shared the Oscar for the Best Live Action Short with another competitor Peggy Rajski for his 23 minute comedy 'Franz Kafka's It's A Wonderful Life'.

With its tongue in cheek title, the film starring Richard E Grant and Ken Stott was an amusing tale about Kafka's struggle to write his daring 1915 novella 'Metamorphosis'.

Its tie with Rajski's 'Trevor' showed an eye catching title could go a long way with Oscar voters who 12 years later awarded a statuette to Ari Sandel's musical comedy 'West Bank Story' about the rivalry between Palestinian and Israeli falafel restaurants.

Now Julia Aks and Steve Pinder are hoping to do the same with their mischievously titled 'Jane Austen's Period Drama'.

A spoof of 'Pride and Prejudice,' 'Sense and Sensibility' and other English costume dramas, it stars Aks as the heroine, Miss Estrogenia Talbot who is thrilled to receive a marriage proposal from the man of her dreams, Ta'imua's James Dickley.

However this moment of bliss quickly descends into embarrassment when Dickley notices blood on her dress and mistakes her menstruation for a serious injury.

As he sets off to inform the doctor of her predicament, Estrogenia's sisters, Nicole Aylise Nelson's Vagianna and Samantha Smart's Labinia urge her to feign an injury to avoid scaring Dickley off.

Will Estrogenia have the courage to teach Dickley about the realities of life for women?

Originally conceived as a three minute sketch by Aks and Pinder, the duo have pulled off a coup in getting Emma Thompson involved an Executive Producer or, as she is described in the credits, "Executive Menstrual Advisor".

Their short is handsomely shot by the cinematographer Luca Del Puppo and Paula Higgins and Barrett Hutchinson do a decent job with the costume design.

Aks also does a spot on impersonation of Thompson and outshines her fellow cast members.

However Pinder and Aks' short never really rises beyond the level of too obvious parody that 'Saturday Night Live' often trades in.

It's too on the nose as the characters' names demonstrate and it feels like a short conceived by film students larking about, mixed with a public service announcement for high school pupils.

Fans of Channel 4's classic sitcom 'The IT Crowd' will tell you there are more inventive ways to poke fun at menstruation and male awkwardness around it.

And it comes nowhere near the sophistication of Chinese Canadian animator Domee Shi's Disney Pixar treatment of the subject in 'Turning Red'.

Instead what we have is a three minute sketch with a gimmicky title stretched over 13 minutes and not a very funny one at that.

('Jane Austen's Period Drama' received its world premiere at the Santa Barbara Film Festival on February 9, 2024)

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