The Thousands

Gifted Brit Sean Ellis successfully expands his 2004 oscar-nominated short into a playful indie feature. Art student Ben Willis fights an insomnia-inducing break-up by working the graveyard shift at the local supermarket. For this team of rejects and pranksters, fighting boredom in the aisles is a question of survival.

If you’ve ever worked in retail, or done any repetitive casual work, you’ll be familiar with this fantasy: being able to stop time… or make it go faster. In Cashback, Ben goes further… he freezes time, then walks around undressing gorgeous female shoppers while musing about art and love.

This superficial philosophising, and the slightly misogynist male fantasy may lead some to ask for their cash back. But take offense at this harmless, offbeat rom-com and you may miss out on the fun of a film which doesn’t take itself very seriously. There’s real beauty – and not a little humour – in these wondrous manipulations of time and image. And you’ll never stare down an aisle at Woolies in quite the same way again.