‘1800 Life’ Review: A Short Film With An Original Plot That Was Marred By Subpar Writing And Execution
If you’re remotely familiar with pop culture or Rick and Morty, then you’ll be aware of this quote from the latter, “existence is pain.” And I truly happen to believe that. Yes, not the most positive note to start the story on, I know and as you can see, I’m a pretty cynical person. However, my cynicism doesn’t really go beyond me being able to accept the negatives of life, saying “it is what it is”, shrugging it off and moving on. But what happens when life genuinely gets to you? What do you do when you are on the last leg and have no way out. The short movie 1800 Life addresses exactly that. The movie stars Divyenndu and Shruthy Menon and is directed by Maanavi Bedi. It is presented by Amazon miniTV. Having watched this almost 30 min movie I have quite a few thoughts about it, so let’s discuss 1800 Life, shall we?
Plot
1800 Life begins with Vishal, a comedian who is going through a bad phase in his career and after a bad show, decides to commit suicide by jumping off a building. His plans are interrupted by an unknown caller constantly calling him. The nameless and faceless woman on the other end knows everything there is to know about Vishal through the ever-present technology as she keeps an eye on him even while talking to him over call. she also knows that he’s about to kill himself. Will she be able to change his mind and convince him to give life a chance?
Characters And Cast
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Vishal and the women on call are played by Divyenndu and Shruthy Menon in 1800 Life, respectively. Now considering we’ve seen Divyenndu in a show such as Mirzapur and many popular Bollywood movies, I did enjoy his performance as Vishal. I think he brought a lot of raw emotion to an otherwise unexplored character. We just hear Shruthy Menon through Vishal’s phone and don’t see her physically present on the screen. But, I did like her role in 1800 Life. Her playful but measured tonality throughout the film really has her otherwise unknown presence a lot of personality and character.
However, the lack of exploration of Vishal’s character kinda made me care for him a lot less than I should have. Like his actual reasons for wanting to take such a drastic step wasn’t really explained. And I personally am someone who needs a solid backstory to feel connected to a character and the lack thereof really bothered me.
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Execution And Final Verdict
So, how was my experience watching 1800 Life? Not only does the story focus on mental health issues and the concept of suicide but also on the fact that no matter what, in the digital world that we are currently a part of, we are never off the grid or have actual privacy, for better or worse. I feel like the story had potential but the execution kinda failed it. Vishal’s lack of backstory made me feel pretty indifferent to him as a character. Like, other than the fact that he has faced some unspecified career issues, I have no clue what his problems in particular are. Also, his character’s “journey” felt half-baked too. And all of that with the ending completely underwhelmed me and left me feeling lost, confused and clueless regarding the whole story of 1800 Life. The message and the basic plot was good and had originality but I feel that the writing lacked depth which made the entire story lacklustre and basic.
So keeping in mind the good actors and a pretty original idea, I will give 1800 Life a 2/5
