Rob Munday
Living in a cinematic era of prequels, sequels and reboots, it’s become difficult not to feel hesitation when you hear of a filmmaker returning to an old storyline, so when director Oliver Goodrum first reached out and informed me he was planning to revisit the narrative of one of my favourite shorts, This is Vanity, I instantly had my reservations. Keen to point out, in an interview on Directors Notes, that he “never wanted this to be seen or thought of as a sequel”, Iniquity may share a lot of similarities with his 2013 film, but it works as an exciting new standalone short offering a fresh perspective on themes of redemption and nature v nurture.
With Vanity focused on a young mother’s desperate attempts to protect her disabled daughter from a juvenile gang, Goodrum informed us over eight years ago (when we first featured that film) of his plans to develop his storyline across two further shorts. Revealing how Iniquity would follow Michael, “the ‘bad’ character”, the director went on to explain how these follow-up films “would focus on the effects of the event on each of the characters and how it changes them”. He even included a trailer for Iniquity at the end of that original film.
Richard Crehan returns to the role of Michael, seven years after originally portraying him.
Iniquity continues Michael’s story, as he’s grown from a troubled teenager to a troubled man. Haunted by his past, he desperately wants to forget the tragic incident that made him one of the most hated people in the country, but on the 10th anniversary of those events, a local journalist and a residential vigil bring him back into the spotlight. As his life starts to fall apart and he struggles to contain his emotions, we’re left with the question of whether this is someone who deserves redemption – has he paid the price for his crimes? Has he really changed?
With Goodrum & writer Alexander Craig originally feeling reluctant to carry out the trilogy, as they were cautious of “being pigeoned holed as kitchen sink film-makers”, the duo decided to return to their narrative when catching up in 2019. Eager to use their experience to create something “different, bigger and more refined”, they were compelled to give Michael’s character more screentime as they were uneasy about where they’d concluded his tale.
“We knew that event would affect him immensely and how that could play out was really intriguing to us as storytellers”
“We didn’t want to just leave the original story there”, Goodrum explains, when we caught up with the filmmaker in August 2020, as they were crowdfunding the short. “It felt like we were saying he [Michael – the bully] was just bad, that it’s his fault and it’s not that simple. We don’t believe in those simple/religious views of good and evil and people being born bad, everything he did, he did because of his conditioning up until that point. We knew that event would affect him immensely and how that could play out was really intriguing to us as storytellers”.
The success of Iniquity lies largely in the script and the fact that it is both a continuation of that original story and a short you can appreciate without any context. However, much like Vanity, this is a character-driven piece and so the performances have to be gripping and believable for the film to work and Goodrum’s cast don’t let him down. Returning to the role of Michael, seven years after originally portraying him, Richard Crehan carries the weight of the world on his shoulders as the film’s tormented protagonist. He’s not the short’s only standout performance though, with the impressive Theo Barklem-Biggs (who short film fans might recognise from his equally menacing performance in recent BIFA-winner Femme) stealing every scene he’s in as Michael’s imposing brother Craig.
Shot over seven days on an Alexa in London, Iniquity isn’t exactly reinventing the wheel with regards to the filmmaking on show, if anything it’s displaying the exact same elements that originally attracted us to Vanity back in 2013. While it might not be the most innovative short we’ll feature in 2021 it’s a testament to the power of storytelling and another impressive calling card for Goodrum and Craig who can hopefully use this film to springboard their careers – they’ve obviously both got talent, it would be criminal if we didn’t see more from them. Who knows, maybe we’ll even get the third part of the trilogy further down the line?