The Blue Door opens with home healthcare worker Gemma Whelan starting a new job working for infirm, bedridden Janie Booth. The house is a mess—the kitchen is full of dirty dishes, there’s a room with sheets on all the furniture—and Booth is a mess. Whoever last fed her not only didn’t take the dishes into the kitchen, they left a quarter of the meal on Booth’s face. Besides the general creepy factor of being alone in a strange house working for someone who doesn’t speak (or even seem to realize you’re there), Whelan doesn’t see much out of the ordinary. Booth’s got a tattoo on her wrist, which Whelan—and the short—focus on hard. A little too hard as it turns out.
After doing a handful of dishes—also, when she goes to throw out the old milk, Whelan just puts it on the floor? She doesn’t dump it so she’s presumably not recycling. Is recycling not a thing in the UK? Anyway, after doing like five dishes (leaving ninety), Whelan goes in to take the sheets off the furniture in the one room. Because… well, because it’s an effective way to introduce the titular Blue Door. It appears out of nowhere. One moment it’s there, the camera tracks away, following Whelan, then when they get back, there’s the door.
And there’s something on the other side, leading to Whelan running around the house trying to escape the blue door, which pops up and someone on the other side tries to get in. Eventually Whelan ends up back in Booth’s bedroom and it’s time for the big surprise finish. Only it’s not much of a surprise once all the pieces are revealed because director Taylor doesn’t really do nuance.
The film’s well-shot (by Benedict Spence) and Taylor’s composition is fine. The script… well, the script is thin. Because it’s just stage direction for Whelan.
Whelan’s awesome. Until the finale, her expressions reacting to her surroundings and the goings-on is the whole show. The short kind of dumps that approach in the last moments, which is just another of the many problems.
It’s disappointing; Whelan puts in a lot better work than the short deserves, especially with the predictable finish.
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