Without ★★★★☆

"an unnerving, darkly comic and deeply chilling meditative study of human behaviour"

Nominated for the Sutherland Award at this year’s BFI London Film Festival, Mark Jackson’s Without is a slow burning drama which recalls the subtle beauty of Kelly Reichardt’s minimalist style and her ability to capture the raw beauty of rural America.

Joslyn (Joslyn Jensen) is a recent high school graduate who takes a job caring for Frank, a disabled, catatonic, wheelchair bound, old man. Frank’s family have gone on holiday, leaving Joslyn alone with him in their isolated, Washington State island home. Before leaving they run her through an endless list of incredibly pedantic do’s and dont’s, including the varying volumes the television must be kept at, the food she can and can’t eat and oddly of most importance is that she “must not put the knives in the dishwasher!” There’s no internet connection, or any real phone reception, just her, Frank and the peaceful Island countryside which surrounds this remote community.

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