Carole & Grey

TikTok movie challenges the old frame ratio orthodoxy, while also diffusing instant gratification and maximum sensory overload with its black-and-white colour palette - from the Rebels with a Cause section of the 28th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

TikTok is going to change the way movies are watched and made. And Carole & Grey, a film conceived of in 45 clips meant for the easily digestible TikTok, is the first film to fully embrace the coming change. The film’s director and leading man, Jon Bass (as Grey), is in a heavy of depressive spell following a nasty breakup and goes on his first major outing post-breakup to retrieve his shared dog from his ex-girlfriend’s house on the other side of New York City. His best friend, the rarely serious and deeply loving Carole (Mary Wiseman), a lesbian with a brand new stalker-turned-girlfriend, joins him and pushes him back into his old self along the way.

The entirety of the film intriguingly uses a portrait aspect ratio (9:16) that gives NYC a new and even more daunting look while also constricting Grey’s emotional world. Shot on convenient smartphone cameras, Bass and his team of four cinematographers use the verticality creatively throughout and constantly find new angles that never seem to be the most typical or obvious choice for a shot type, though the 9:16 ratio does change the way blocking looks tremendously and there is no way to avoid that. Even the acting and comedy were designed for the reel-sharing social media app with the acting talent uses the same staged not-staged style that dominates Instagram and TikTok both. One’s ability to appreciate Carole & Grey, like it or hate it, will be irreversibly tied to their tolerance for TikTok aesthetics.

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