10 Items or Less

A small film that takes place over one day. A well-known actor has not made a film for a long time. He is preparing for a new part: he will play the manager of a small supermarket, and to learn the role he goes to a real one. A shop on the edge of the city, in an immigrant neighbourhood. He wanders there for hours, watches people, and nobody recognises him. He starts talking to the woman on the till. Scarlet wants to leave this place; she is applying for another job and the interview is today. There is nobody to drive her. The actor's car has not come either. The two set off together. From there the film becomes a conversation across one day. The car, a store, a parking lot, a rehearsal for the interview and the gaps in between. The subject is work, money, fear and how much a person trusts themselves. What the narrative is interested in is not a famous man meeting an ordinary one but that both are afraid of the same thing: not being called again. The film is very short, under eighty minutes, and rests almost entirely on two actors. Morgan Freeman plays the actor and Paz Vega plays Scarlet. Jonah Hill appears briefly. Brad Silberling wrote and directed. It was made on a small budget in a short time. Who it is for: anyone who likes two-hander films built on talk. Who it is not for: anyone waiting for incident; almost nothing happens, and that is deliberate.