Esther is working at a pack and send courier company. However due to her strange, naive nature she finds it hard to socialise with others, while everyone else around her adheres to a social group. She too will attempt to socialise but will discover that making friends is a game of appearances and it is not so easy.
Leah Revivo makes a student film about social life and social shallowness. Her main character is naively expressing herself speaking very straightforward and mirroring the truth about everyone else. But the truth being hard to accept, this leads to her social marginalisation by her colleagues.
‘Being Nice’ speaks about the ‘being nice’ fashion. Social interaction has become a show of false impressions that people enounce about each other to acquire group approval and popularity. However they forget that the true danger comes from speaking untrue favourable words about the person they want to establish a friendship with. Leah Revivo’s main character, Esther, seems to suffer of a small IQ but there’s one thing she can’t be condemned or judged for: she doesn’t gossip and neither does she make false appreciations about others in order to be socially accepted. Her sincerity will reflect the true faces of her work colleagues making their superficial ‘friendships’ fall apart and will ostracise her from them at the same time. However she will captivate the interest of the fewest who can endure and accept the truth about themselves. How far can this acceptance go though? Can one truly accept anyone around them?
Though a little naive – in terms of screening – ‘Being Nice’ manages to be a truthful film through the truth it praises so rawly. Director Leah Revivo proves she owns the ability to correctly direct her actors and her theme towards an accurate exposure of the psychological features of the archetypes embodied and a meaningful outcome of the story. A student film but nevertheless a lesson about truth.
TMFF RATING:
