The Living

Resembling a student film, this low-budget but intermittently gripping short piece begins like a GenX version of The Big Chill. Some half-dozen post-college friends are summoned to Columbus, OH, where a former classmate lies in a coma following a car accident. Intercutting documentary-like interview scenes within the structure of the story, the film doesn't offer much that we haven't already seen on the drama side: the friends congregate, hug, cry, drink, reminisce and wonder about the meaning of loss. The acting, timing, and directing are all pretty standard fare (except for one circling the table of friends shot which goes on ad nauseam and does truly induce indigestion). The "interviews," by contrast, seem much more real and from the heart, particularly when one character, struggling to define what death means to her says: ‘It's about the living.' Death reminds us what a gift we have in life. Directed by Paul Wagner III, the film includes the filmmaker's directorial debut "The Big Chair," a mercifully short music video that adds nothing to the package. An optional purchase for larger collections. Aud: P. (R. Pitman)