Cashback

Plot synopsis:
Aspiring artist Ben Willis develops insomnia after a painful breakup with his girlfriend, Suzy. To take his mind off Suzy and to occupy the extra waking hours he has recently gained, Ben begins working at a local Sainsbury's supermarket, where he meets colourful co-workers. Among them is his colleague Sharon, with whom he soon develops a mutual crush. As his personal means to escape the boredom inherent in the night shift, Ben lets his imagination run wild. In particular, he imagines that he can stop time so that he can walk around in a world that is "frozen" like the pause of a film. He imagines female patrons of the supermarket stopped in time, allowing him to undress and draw them. Finally the ability to stop time becomes real.
A series of flashbacks occur with each progression of the plot, accompanied by Ben's narration and an examination of the effect the situation had had upon him. He explains how he always has been impressed by the beauty of the female body: how he, as a young boy, witnessed a Swedish boarder walk naked from the shower to her room. In another flashback, the young Ben and his best friend Sean share Sean's discovery of his parents' adult magazines, and Sean pays a neighbourhood girl fifty pence to show him, and all the neighbourhood boys, her vulva.
Ben's boss, Alan Jenkins, recruits the staff for a weekend football game and, after an embarrassing defeat, 26-Nil, Ben freezes time again. This time he discovers that he is not alone when he sees a mysterious stranger who is able to move inside the frozen world as he can. When Jenkins throws a party to honour his own birthday and as a consolation for their defeat, Sharon asks Ben to be her date, to which he eagerly but nervously agrees. While there, Ben encounters his ex-girlfriend Suzy, who implores him to try their relationship again. Ben refuses her advance but she kisses him, just as Sharon witnesses from afar. Sharon angrily leaves the party. Ben realizes Sharon has seen the kiss, and freezes time. After spending several days "frozen", Ben concludes that although he can stop time, he cannot reverse it to correct the mistake. He eventually seeks to explain himself to Sharon at her apartment, and a confrontation similar to the film-opening breakup occurs. Sharon henceforth does not show up to work at the supermarket.
As a practical joke, colleagues Barry and Matt phone Ben; Matt poses as an art gallery owner who is interested in displaying Ben's drawings, and schedules an appointment for Ben to present more to him. When Ben arrives as agreed, the reaction of the owner quickly reveals that he has been pranked. However, the gallery owner is nonetheless interested in Ben's work and decides to exhibit Ben's drawings. Sharon receives an invitation to the exhibition (on November 31st !) and visits. She is moved as most of the pieces depict her and she happily greets Ben, congratulating him on his success. The finale occurs as Ben shares his ability to stop time with her and the two step outside into a time-frozen snowfall.

Tags: pornographic, fantasy, cult, alternate reality, flashback, psychedelic, romantic, entertaining, prank

Review:
They combine to give this low budget project a big movie feel, destined for the wide audience it deserves.Most of all, I believe "Cashback" is the vehicle which will introduce newcomer Sean Biggerstaff (Oliver Wood of "Harry Potter") to the world.
The film follows Ben's process of dealing with his broken heart, while he is working with his silly colleagues.Effectively the film also tells the story about Ben's past which shows how his fascination with the female body began and how those things formed the way he thinks about things now.
While working in the supermarket he likes to freeze time, to capture the beauty of little things, and to draw pictures of the (naked) female customers.This film is not about sex and teen jokes as some people probably will say.
What follows is best seen instead of read about.This film is filled to the rim with the most beautiful stills, completed with several speeds of motion and feels right.
He is proud of 'Cashback', and rightly so  for you will be pressed to find a prettier fantasy or funnier characters in a film this year.'Cashback' is director Sean Ellis' debut feature and he recreates the atmosphere of his same-titled short film with deft strokes, breathing life into a fantasy movie masking as a romantic comedy.
It also includes freezing time and undressing women (Ben finds great source of interest in the female form), arguably the film's most intense sequences.
These are two dumb and goofy guys in their late teens who pass their time doing pranks and acting like idiots, such as smuggling sex toys in women's shopping bags at Sainsbury's and guffawing at the effect when she sees it and picks it up.
As ever, there is a romantic interest (Emilia Fox)  a girl who works at the same supermarket during the same shifts  who is the film's most likable and interesting character, bar none.
My theatre audience also demanded Sean Biggerstaff on some info on this lovely actress.It needs to be said that 'Cashback' is a sexually aggressive film with plenty of nudity and stories of sexual awakening.
For that matter, Sean Ellis has worked in a homage to the latter at one point when the boss gives a rallying speech during the football tournament, telling his employers to think of him 'as Russell Crowe'.The film has only two faults as far as I can see it: its wildly unfocused story and its slightly cheesy ending.
Having seen the film a few times, I can really say: 'I don't think there is a person out there who wouldn't enjoy watching this great piece.
The story rings true.I felt at the end of the movie that the film maker had given me a glimpse of what it must be like to be an extremely talented artist in the midst of varying degrees of angst, joy, despair and creativity.
Group of guys who are falling in love every day, on the tube, at the supermarket Who can freeze the time, and admire the beauty of an unknown woman.
There is a main character, who looks at the world through my eyes, the Sainsbury's venue is almost as absurd as the office that I work at, and the beautiful Sharon, is like the secretary of my boss.
This is actually a philosophical movie that tries to explain one of the most eternal questions: "What is love?" The insight, thoughts and descriptions in this subject, are very interesting.With a lot of nudity, humor and nonsense, the movie is never boring, and always keeps you in touch with the characters and their thoughts.Cashback depicts love as a very much OCD thing.
Well written, well acted, well shot, interesting plot, thoughtful, and several beautiful women in various stages of dress; what more could a man want from a serious film.I enjoyed this film overall about a coming of age.
Sean Ellis loves women.Never met the man, probably never will, but that was the #1 takeaway from this uneven but thoroughly interesting film.Lots of layered construction in the story.Borrows from the Forgetting Sarah Marshall meme, starts with the protagonist losing his main love, that is the setup for all that follows.Borrows from THE GIRL THE GOLD WATCH AND EVERYTHING, using the "time freeze" technique to sync up the viewer and the exposition.Borrows from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, using a probing sort of voice-over to fill in the uneven parts of the story, as with the time freezing (see above) But most of all, when you leave the theatre (or turn off the DVD) if you think about this film at all -- and you may -- what you will remember most are the orations on the beauty of women and the joy of discovery thereof, along with related ideas on how the nature of the female form may not itself be the original art form...?
He goes to work at a grocery store, where his imagination and eccentric coworkers help him through the breakup and put a little romance back into his life.There is some artistic nudity, where our protagonist sketches various men and women in the buff; none of it seems gratuitous, it's just one more part of the film.
It screams of a young art student's desperate attempt to say something meaningful but actually has only the dumbest, most base things to say.The film's hilariously pretentious and meaningless tagline is "Sometimes love is hiding between the seconds of your life".
Good, because it makes no sense after you have seen the film either.The protagonist in this piece of drivel is an aspiring artist (of course he is) who works in a menial job stacking shelves at a supermarket (ah, the under-appreciation budding artists out there - breaks your heart, doesn't it?) To relieve the tedium of his job, he pretends he can "freeze time" and appreciate the beauty all around him.
If someone made a movie with footage from Go!, Fight Club and Art School Confidential, and edited it into a love-story completely devoid of chemistry, with no redeeming features, this would be it.And don't buy into the crap about "breathtaking beauty" either; some of the scenes look OK, but nothing spectacular.
I recently watched the 17 minute short of Cashback and for the life of me, i cannot explain the 7.5 rating on IMDb. The film is just an adolescent, leery production that was no more intelligent or thought provoking than flicking to page 3 of a UK red top newspaper.
It is a journey through the meaning of love and the beauty of everything around us.Our story involves an art student named Ben who has just experienced a bad breakup with his first real girlfriend.
The music was one of the best parts of this film.I especially liked the way his "stopping time" was analogous to remembering a moment and to capturing a moment in art.The ending line is ripped straight from Ferris Bueller.
It's true that the rom-com elements, as well as some over-long slapstick scenes like the embarrassing mirror montage and the whole football scene, don't add much, and the film probably worked just as well as an 18-minute short, but the more beautiful parts more than make up for it, and even in the romantic scenes I found myself rooting for the protagonists and sharing their happiness, rather than cringing at the cheese - not an easy task by itself.
Overall, a very impressive directorial debut for Sean Ellis, and a thoroughly enjoyable movie, halfway between a feel-good dramedy and an art-house film..
I heard good things about the 2004 18 minute short entitled "Cashback" but when the opportunity to watch this film presented itself I decided to watch it right away and skip the short.This movie is definitely one of the most fresh/original films I have ever seen, although some could say it has been slightly influenced by Requiem For a Dream,Fightclub or The Machinist.After breaking up with his girlfriend, Ben Willis( brilliantly played by Sean Biggerstaff)develops insomnia.
GCI was not used but the overall look of the movie is amazing and so it is the transitions between some of the shots.The only flaw is that sometimes the story isn't as focused as it could/should be which is quite typical in artistic movies.That said, Cashback is not only a great film, but a really original one as well that you shouldn't miss.9/10.
This movie is fantastic in all ways, it's very clever and smart The female nudity it tasteful and beautiful and shows the women in form of art rather than "sexy".
It comes off like the kinds of things a 13 year-old would draw in his notebook when his parents aren't looking.The movie's hero is Ben Willis, a teenager who has just been dumped by his girlfriend Suzy for reasons we never understand.
This is a movie that only pretends to be about something.Ben's moments of pseudo-philosophy about his good reasons for gawking at large breasts are off-set by a cast of characters that make us want to leave the room.
Ben has got his own technique: he "freezes" time and walks around, looking at the beauty of things (mainly nude women)."Cashback" starts out so great.
And when Ben starts freezing a moment in time for the first time, that's the obvious highlight of the film - especially for men, who can watch Ben living out one of their greatest secret fantasies (just why are there only girls who look like supermodels in this movie?).It was interesting for me to learn afterwards that this portion of "Cashback" had been a stand alone short movie two years before the release of the full length feature.
When the movie ends, it has turned into an unrealistic romantic comedy with a sappy ending, leaving the viewer with the feeling of just having watched a strangely incoherent film.Knowing that director/writer Sean Ellis had to extend his original idea and write a whole motion picture around it, I can see where this incoherence is coming from.
It's a bit of a shame that Ellis wasn't able to stretch out the feel of the short movie over the course of 90 minutes, but "Cashback" is still an enjoyable little flick with a great cast and some highly intriguing scenes.
I found it to have the perfect combination of absolute beauty, both in concept and visual execution, and total lack of pretension.Sean Ellis shows an incredible talent for the ability to deliver a film that is essentially a romantic comedy, something I would usually avoid with as much passion as this film delivered, but that moved me to the core with its beauty, both in the cinematography and the main character's development.It would be so easy for Ellis to have made a film of such great beauty and style that was artistic, stylish and maybe unattainable, the fact that he has made a movie that is both perfectly art house and universally watchable is a credit to his talent and maturity.
People are simply gradually loosing the ability to see beauty in woman, and in sex.CASHBACK is one of the greatest movies that make me think a LOT after wards, and move me, allow me to understand life..
Well u except a lot like the age old teenage flicks after seeing the posters ...but,for real,well for once u r in for a treat....Sean Ellis brings u a fresh inside into the world of love,crushes,sex and work.Well for starters the main protégé ,Sean Biggerstaff plays a sadistic non sleeping ,smeone who has broken up with her loved one and just cant get over it....as for the rest ,the movie follows to how ,the young man,finds himself a job with a supermarket and his co-workers.like all British comedy's this one get on the dark side of the funnier self.an excellent cast and great screenplay...make this a movie worthwhile.its 7 out of 10 ..from me ....thts it ....
Based on a short film of the same name written and directed by Sean Ellis, this is easily one of my favourite movies this year.
I could tell you all about the setting up of A Nutshell Review, but that's another story (along the same veins) for another day.Like my other favourite British movie of this year (Hot Fuzz), Cashback has its primary setting in a supermarket, where Ben ends up in, working the graveyard hours of a 24hrs chain.
It's true that the female form is beautiful, and this film provides that sense of appreciation through Ben's artistic talent (and of course, the camera angles, the lingering moments, etc).
The story about a guy who is dumped by his girlfriend, develops a huge insomnia and starts working in the night shift of a supermarket pretends to stop time and has a lot of adventures.
Only a few times in your life do you get to see such a beautiful script with matching scene direction...Sean Ellis has done this, with the help of an equally fantastic crew of actors...this movie made me laugh, cry with powerful feel-good factor and envy.
He's trapped between the boundaries of reality and imagination with the ability to freeze time and thus being able to see the world from a very different perspective.It's a movie which benefits from an unique artistic direction, presenting what initially seems pretty ordinary story, but manages to take it to a complete new level.
Besides being captivating and very interesting, besides the affection the main character demands and also receives from the viewer, and also besides the excellent acting, this one manages to be funny in many moments, even hilarious at times, bringing a change of mood whenever it considers it necessary.As you might have guessed by now, I was truly impressed by this movie.
Cashback focuses on art student Ben Willis who had just had a stormy break-up with his girlfriend.Unable to get over it,he develops insomnia.To kill time,he starts to work at the local supermarket.There,his artistic side and his fascination of the female body starts to work overtime.There are also quirky characters such as Ben's two co-workers,an eccentric boss and a female colleague which he eventually falls for.Also not mentioning his promiscuous best friend.Cashback has both elements of drama and comedy.The intensity of the film goes high but the comedy also reminds you to have a good time.The experiences faced by Ben are realistic and that's what makes this movie good.His ability to freeze time and undressing women in the supermarket adds something unique(wish i had that ability too)to this indie gem.Ben's colleagues at the supermarket are hilarious with their zany pranks..The love story between Ben and Sharon (his female colleague) unravels in the second half quite nicely at that.There are some clichés however,only towards the ending but who cares?..Cashback was definitely a surprise, a unique perspective of life,love and everything between for Ben Willis.Worth-watching..
While Ben, in his fantasy, freezes and undresses the shapely patrons in the supermarket he works in, we see him as an art student concentrating on sketching them as if they were nude models in the studio.The movie is often slow to the extent of being telltale of its origin  that is, an expansion from a short film.
i was really touched by this film - my girlfriend and i were rolling in hysterics and the ending will bring tears, i promise.this is a debut from a new young director from england - i heard the budget was really low - amazing camera-work, hilarious dialogue and the casting is fantastic - where did they find the supermarket characters?!
Yet, we loss over that because the narration (who is cinematically reified) makes clear that the eyes through which we see this are the eyes of an artist who: desperately wants to see beauty to make his life worth living. specifically thinks women's bodies are the ultimate expression of perfect beauty has the ability to enter a scene outside the film, freezing it so as to examine it for its beauty and capture it in drawings.Hence, we see him as a young boy, encountering the visual mysteries of special surfaces and places.
In Cashback, however, the love story did not seem take on, which was another pleasant surprise.I did not like that some of the nudity was presented in a sexual manner, nor did I like the sexual references because I thought it spoiled the artistic value of the rest of the movie.
Originally a short film is was skilfully expanded into a feature first time director Sean Ellis.
When customers pay with some type of debit card, they are asked if they want any "cash back." Also, character Ben Willis, in art college, can't sleep after his girlfriend dumps him, so he gets a night shift job at the supermarket, making use of that otherwise useless 8 hours, and for his efforts gets "cash back."Also, two years prior to this feature length movie was the original award-winning 18-minute short film "Cashback", so this movie is the lengthened version of the same story.Sean Biggerstaff is Ben Willis, art student who gets dumped.
Something more that I could ever think of.This movie tells us about two beautiful ideas - If you don't stop for a minute, you might miss the beauty of life and remind us of the beauty of the female body.Ben likes and observes women/girls, not in a horny way, but in a way, of which he can always see beauty from them.
A lovely movie to tell us that life can be beautiful, depending on how we see it and how we face it.
Even in the worst of time such as the breakup Ben experienced with Suzy, an artist with the ability to see beauty in and through things around is going to pull himself together and appreciate what he has got.The jokes and gags were funny and keep the movie interesting and amusing all along.
There are some good musings on time, love, art, beauty, which are fairly insightful.
The film does a good job of completing the love story.