Upstate Story
It’s all about getting to the weekend. Even on a Monday. When you become an adult, those days off are precious commodities. It doesn’t matter what you do for a living. Especially if you have a job like Ellis’s, where you are working for a cleaning service Monday-Friday. He counts down the days and minutes, but not before getting drunk on Sunday night. This time, it’s rum. Bad mistake; he’s still considerably hung over on the job. He still gets it done, though, and still has time to look at other job possibilities at night. I think all adults can probably relate to Ellis, in one way or another.
Ellis is played by co-writer and director Shaun Rose, and most of the storytelling is in hearing Ellis’s inner monologue about his days, his thoughts, his life while Rose shows it to us visually in “Upstate Story.” The film has almost a home movies type of feel to it, and while that’s no doubt due to low-budget restrictions of the production, it actually works to the film’s advantage. This feels like a story told to us, and one we become engaged it, much in the way fly-on-the-wall documentaries work in how they immerse us into the lives of their subjects. If this had more technical weight thrown into it, I don’t know if it would be as engaging or entertaining as it is now. The film is an hour long, but tells the story of a week in Ellis’s life; seeing as though we don’t get much interpersonal interaction between he and some of the other actors, this is an appropriate length, which doesn’t feel padded, or overstay its welcome. The musical score by Jacob Veitch also helps our emotional engagement in the film.
Ellis is almost a one-note character. His voiceover sounds beaten down and cynical. I was concerned that the monotone nature of the character would weigh down the film, even at an hour long, but Rose has nice touches, and surprises, along the way. There’s the way Ellis drowns out his co-workers chatting during a break, the different color pallets during flashbacks to distinguish between the drab, black-and-white nature of his current life. And then, there’s the surprise we get at the very end. For Ellis, Friday means more than just the end of his work week; it means the brightening of his life with the most important people in it. It is with them that we see the film in color for the first time, and the film comes alive. After their time has ended, however, it’s about getting ready for the work week again. This time, however, he feels brightened, and the week ahead appears to have things going his way, as he’s able to enjoy a smoke before work. There is not a lot about “Upstate Story” that will catch a viewer off guard; there is a lot that is low-key entertaining and alive about it, though, that I couldn’t help but appreciate.
