Release Date – TBC, Cert – TBC, Run-time – 1 hour 48 minutes, Director – Oscar Hudson
Two soldiers (Elliott Tittensor, Luke Tittensor) from rival countries are stationed in the middle of the desert, as tensions grow between them the lines that separate them blur as they question who each other are.
The split-screen opening of Straight Circle shows two rival military parades. Each trying to be the loudest, grandest and most patriotic of their respective countries. War may not be taking place between the pair, but there’s certainly an ongoing feud to prove which country has the most strength and power. It’s not the only time the split-screen style will be used in the film, although when it later appears its less for amusing bickering and more to get across the strange descent the central characters go through as the lines, and indeed border, that separates them start to blur.
Luke and Elliott Tittensor play the two soldiers, one from each country, stationed in a cramped hut in the middle of the desert, tasked with small tasks that appear to resemble very little. As one puts it “we’re guarding dust for politicians.” Yet, despite this, the pair have their own personal domestic disputes to attend to; such as where have the boiled eggs gone? Their attitudes and humour represent a grumpier version of Bottom’s Eddie and Richie.
Yet, the handful of enjoyably silly moments that we get, each captured in a very British vein, between the pair soon sees the humour fade as a more sinister tone comes in. Twists and developments start to settle in which cause the pair to question who they are, and the other person, and what their roles are actually meant to mean. As the film enters much more surreal territory it starts to move on from the feeling that things could perhaps work better as a short film, and are perhaps helped from having gone in knowing very little apart from the brief synopsis which suggested the initial satirical elements – which themselves are certainly effective.
While the humour may fade, and be missed, where the tonal shifts best succeed is in feeling as if they’re from the same film while still being so different to what comes beforehand. They’re well handed by writer-director Oliver Hudson and editor Fouad Gaber. Yet, the film as a whole still feels as if it could be trimmed down, and slightly better condensed, once the twists start to properly cause a mad descent for the characters. The full effect doesn’t seem to come through as stretched nature of the run-time starts to take over the closer to the 2-hour mark the film gets (eventually clocking in at 108-minutes when screened at 2025’s London Film Festival).
As the satirical edges start to be worked more into the surreal beats there’s a bit more grounding that helps to see them through beyond simple interest, but these tones are mostly present in the more straightforward elements of the first half. When the petty feuds between the two central characters, stuck together in a confined space, bring about a good handful of chuckles before their twisty (in multiple senses of the word) descent.
While it might forget the laughs as it goes on, the surreal beats of Straight Circle help to push it on for a good while before the overstretched run-time starts to impact. A likable satire that occasionally needs to recover when it ideas go on for a bit too long.
Just A Little Bit Random 