By Simon Thompson
Talia Shea Levin’s Make Me A Pizza is an enjoyable and well executed short film which manages to ask surprisingly deep questions about the nature of intimacy through the lens of parodying porn cliches- a sentence that I don’t think I was expecting to type before watching it. The plot centres around a bored and lonely Douglas Sirkian housewife ( played by Sophie Neff) who, with nothing better to do, decides to order a pizza However, when the delivery guy ( played by Woody Coyote, yep I know) turns up with it she realises that she he doesn’t have the money to pay for the pizza- so of course she tries to seduce him so that she can get it for free.
What follows is a rapid- fire dialogue exchange in the vein of movies such as The Graduate or When Harry Met Sally, where the delivery guy continually turns down her advances through giving her specific economic reasons why what she wants would hurt the business financially. Make Me A Pizza manages to work for two reasons; the first reason is that as a writer/director Talia Shea Levin manages to completely nail the choppy editing, stilted dialogue, and grainy cinematography associated with 1970-80s porn creating a hilarious retro-aesthetic in the process, the second reason is that the chemistry between Sophie Neff and Woody Coyote is genuinely believable and convincing, which ties together the central theme of the movie nicely.
To conclude, Make Me A Pizza is a funny and expertly directed and acted short comedy-drama that builds a lot of thematic depth from an ostensibly simple plot. This is a short movie that manages to balance both humour with heart and charm, a feat which is often tried but rarely if ever pulled off.
Make Me a Pizza screens as part of SXSW Film Festival 2024.
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