The Silent Child

Very nice short film, expertly acted and directed. I notice it was written by Rachel Shenton, the actress who played the sign-language au-pair. Obviously a well-informed woman. All of the characters are developed in some small way during the 20-minute runtime. If this had been the opening 20 minutes of a feature, I would have been eager to keep watching for another hour. As a short, the ending is a little abrupt - but a quite acceptable way of doing it. Won the Oscar in 2018.

Cute - and immensely frustrating... because, sadly, there are plenty of "real" mothers like the one portrayed here. "Stations of the Cross" (original title: "Kreuzweg") has a similar mother-figure. If one looks deeper into these characters... they're not evil. They're anxious and ignorant, and they only do what they think is best (for themselves and their children). We're all a bit like them, more or less - destructive behaviour stems from suffering and ignorance, rather than conscious evil.

Usual uplifting teacher-student stuff

PSA text at the end aside, this is a compassionate, well-shot, beautifully-acted short.