It's All About the Shoes (2008) Online

"It's all about the shoes" as a title put me in mind of the Spike Lee and Michael Jordan commercials for Nike but that is me paraphrasing and it is evident early in the film that the title actually sums up the mindset of the young woman that the viewer is fortunate enough to wake up in the head of. Inside her head we see things through her eyes but the important part of the film is actually the torrent of generally quite selfish, self-obsessed and generally vacuous thoughts that rush through her brain as she gets ready for work.

It is no surprise that gossip magazines feature in the things we see, because this woman is one that many of us will know – although you may feel like a bit of a snob for recognising her as being worthy of the sudden pay-off this short has. She considers others in terms of how they treat her, considers a baby based on what celebrities are doing, stresses about her clothing based on what she was seen wearing week ago and so on and so forth. It is well-written and well delivered so that the individual thoughts ring true but the babbling self-obsessed nature of them works as well. While we don't see much we see enough to trigger her thoughts and for the viewer to understand that she is not being "reasonable" in her thought process but is actually jumping to the selfish and the empty as fast as possible and with as little justification as possible.

As a short it is effective because it captures this one character really well and judges her through her own words/thoughts. She is an empty person in an empty life and the film keeps her very real and convincing – which would be depressing if the stream of thoughts ever paused long enough to think about it (which again is the point). It is a good short for doing that and the conclusion drew a laugh – although the fact that it does is perhaps a statement in itself.