OK, Good

OK, Good is a particularly oblique and pared-down entry into the 'ticking human timebomb' genre – a minimalist Taxi Driver set in the world of struggling LA actors, and fraught with appropriate desperation. Looking like it was shot for less than the cost of the headshots that its alienated main character Paul (Hugo Armstrong) purchases. The film is confined largely to his auditions, workshops and daily routines, and any backstory is inferred, most revealingly by the manner in which he reads his often benign commercial dialogue both in auditions and at home in preperation. There is something a little cosy about the film's refusal to spoonfeed its audience exposition (which becomes a kind of spoonfeeding in itself) and the climactic scenes are rather derivative of those of a certain Haneke film. Nonetheless, the considerable merits – including Armstrong's brilliantly cagey, intense lead performance and director Daniel Martinico's shoestring visual inventiveness – signify two names to keep track of.