Synopsis
Heather is a shy lady who works in a helpline call centre. When she receives a phone call from a mystery man, she has no idea that the encounter will change her life forever.
The Phone Call
2013 Directed by Mat Kirkby
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Popular reviews
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Sally Hawkins carries here. I wasn’t crazy about the melodramatic music toward the end or the unrelated romance, but overall it’s pretty engaging.
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Sally Hawkins and Jim Broadbent star in this short about crisis helpline worker Heather, who faces a personal dilemma after receiving a call from Stanley, an elderly man in distress.
Hawkins is phenomenal here, playing Heather as someone meek yet with a deep empathy she uses to reach out to Stanley any way she can; most of the runtime is focused on her side of the conversation, and the actress more than carries it through, each expression telling a thousand words as this character grapples with her own values while trying to help this unhappy caller.
Though only heard, Broadbent is no less brilliant opposite her, getting across so much with a peerless vocal performance that builds Stanley into an…
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someone get sally hawkins a massage for carrying this whole short! she will always understand the brief whether she’s a hotline counsellor or falling for a sexy fish man, and her performance just about gets you past the confused (definitely manipulative?) storytelling.
watched on argo
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I really wish Sally Hawkins would call me everyday to check up on me and tell me that everything would be OK
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A quietly hard hitting short made with care. At only 20 minutes, the amount of emotion this made me genuinely feel is nothing short of praiseworthy. Sally Hawkins is phenomenal. I'm reminded how great of an actor she is as it's her performance that held me every step of the way. Jim Broadbent also gives an excellent voice performance that works wonders the further it goes along. The type of experience where once it ends, you understand why a character did what they did and the fact this is a reality for these people.
Best to watch this in the right mood and setting, it completely absorbed me. Not something you just throw on.
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Sally Hawkins AND Jim Broadbent both squeezed into a twenty minute short. What could possibly go wrong. Well I'm here to tell you... nothing at all. This is simple, deep and moving all at the same time.
Utterly beautiful.
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Sally Hawkins’s performance in this Oscar-winning short is light-years better than most of the performances that were actually nominated for Oscars that year.
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There’s some poor direction toward the end and it’s kinda manipulative, but thanks to the heavy lifting done by these two incredible actors this short film still felt incredibly tender, honest and heartbreaking.
Jim Broadbent gives a brilliant vocal performance.
Sally Hawkins made me fucking cry. She is this film, so emotive, so sweet, and the director should consider himself extremely lucky to have her, because without her this might not have even been good.