Karmina is a 24 year old woman who quit lap dancing. However a miscarriage and the breakdown of her relationship with her boyfriend amongst other things leads her to go back to the Pleasure Place and pick up her old job. Unfortunately a tragedy threatens her dance, but the show must go on.
Starting out with black and white shots with words depicting the recent life events of the main character, this film spells out that it is going to focus on the message as it sees it. The actual point or message is a little confusing and is presented quite flatly by the film. The device of the goldfish representing something important in her life, the loss or potential harm of which she must overcome, at least on the surface, is pretty good but the delivery damages it. Like I said, aside from the tagline `the show must go on' the message is not totally clear
The direction is a strange swirling mix of blurred images, slow motion and black and white - all seen from Karmina's point of view. It is trying to be too clever for it's own good and it only damages the material it is presenting. The direction is all pretty poor actually and I did feel a pang of sympathy for the writer who must have wondered why their script played second fiddle to the direction. It is a real shame, because I have seen Walker's previous work, 420 Seconds of Love, and simply loved everything about it - here she simply didn't do it for me.
It is difficult to judge any of the cast as they are given no opportunity to do good work by the direction - even the lead actress is barely allowed to speak, the POV camera is the only thing allowed to star here. Page 3 model Jakki Degg is given the lead role but is barely given screen time to cash in on the famous connection.
Overall this is an interesting tale at heart. Sadly this heart is lost in an overly forceful direction that ultimately damages the short and muddles the point unnecessarily.
