The Flyer

Anna has many jobs. She sends money home. She’s Polish. She’s also young and attractive, which helps – not her perhaps, but those watching and empathising.

Andrea Harkin’s 15-minute film depends upon Aleksandra Kocela’s performance to illuminate what has become a political joke, on a par with plumbing, although The Flyer is not judgemental about immigration, or the EU’s policy of shared work opportunities, or foreign girls taking our blokeish dumbnuts in hand. Anna’s story is a romantic one, but not in an obvious sense. It is bitter sweet, which gives it an edge.

Harkin paces her script well, never slowing down to allow sparrowheads to catch up. Even flashbacks to an earlier, more innocent time, are free from misty black-and-white, in case those pop corned gigglers in the second row haven’t got the message.

There are flaws – two. The film resembles an intro into something more substantial and the male lead (Chris Somerville), who plays a work colleague with a crush on Anna, is so wet you want to wring him.