DELIBERATE | Omeleto

A woman meets her teacher. Alice has returned to her old high school to visit her former teacher, Mr. Jacobs. The conversation seems amiable at first, with Mr. Jacobs warmly welcoming Alice back. But this isn't just an alumna visiting her old stomping grounds for old time's sake. Years ago, when Alice was a student of Mr. Jacobs, she had an affair with him. She now visits him in hopes of getting an apology. But when faced with his actual presence, Alice finds her certainty and confidence crumbling as they pick up where they left off. Directed and written by Marta Roncada, this emotionally gripping, thought-provoking short drama is a finely wrought forensic examination of a student-teacher relationship and its aftereffects, even years later. Alice and her teacher had a romantic and sexual relationship when she was his student. Years later, Alice has become an adult and accrued a new understanding of their relationship, and she wants accountability from him. But through the film's command of intricate emotional dynamics and equally precise and layered performances, we see Alice's confidence crumble as she discovers she has not quite left the past behind. Essentially a two-hander, the film's strengths rest on the clarity of its direction and the exceptional depth of its writing, which conveys, with precise economy, who Alice and Mr. Jacobs are, both in the past and in the present. After an initial dance of polite wariness, Alice presents her demand: she wants an apology. But that would require Mr. Jacobs accepting Alice's new interpretation of their past relationship as coercive and unequal, and as their discussion continues, Mr. Jacobs actively refuses to see Alice's perspective, insisting he is a good person who fell in love. Instead, Mr. Jacobs systematically dismantles Alice's defences, arguing about agency and bringing up past emotions and memories, among other verbal defences. This slow deconstruction is both fascinating and discomfiting to witness, as Alice psychologically dissolves, a transition played with compelling vulnerability by actor Kelly Lou Dennis. Her moral certainty becomes doubt as she loses trust in her own truth, and actor Carl Beukes deploys everything from dextrous verbal sophistry to amiable charm to take apart Alice's arguments. He plays upon Alice's past feelings for him, and watching him resurrect the ghost of that past attraction makes clear just how such a relationship came to be in the first place. Textured, complicated and deeply compassionate, the ending of DELIBERATE leaves Alice and viewers in a shaky place, mostly because it entrenches us in a powerful insight: though time and growth can change people, power dynamics between people are not so easily shaken off. Alice seems empowered at first, and believes herself to be -- but is that true? Alice seeks closure, but that is an impossible goal when someone refuses to see things from her point of view. And perhaps that is the final devastation and betrayal: that someone who purported to care for her cannot find the empathy to understand her perspective, instead trying to twist it into something else. Realizing that, she can forgive herself. Alice can learn that closure is something she can give herself -- aided perhaps with the devastating clarity about who her former teacher really is. DELIBERATE. Courtesy of Marta Roncada at https://instagram.com/wholepicturesla.