‘Bananahead’ Review: Christopher Greenslate’s Short Film Is Messy Yet Fascinating

Watching Bananahead, directed by Christopher Greenslate, feels like solving a puzzle or a mystery. It’s like having this big board in front of you, and it’s filled with exciting clues. What’s required of you is focusing on the right clues and forming a theory about what’s really going on. It’s both a fascinating experience and a challenging exercise. Well, how much of it you enjoy depends on your approach. If you’re looking for just some quick entertainment, this might not be the thing for you. But if you’re someone who digs the kind of cinema that makes you think and scratch your head for quite some time, then Bananahead ticks all the boxes. That said, is it any good? I’m going to get into that in a while, but first, let us take a look at what the big deal is. 

Here’s how it goes: Andy Sanger, a budding actress, goes to an audition. It’s for a film called Bananahead, which is being adapted from a best-selling book of the same name, penned by none other than her own mother. What’s the other catch? Andy’s mother, the author, mysteriously disappeared years ago. But that’s not where the craziness ends. Andy’s grandmother also went missing, just like her mother. With that kind of a traumatizing history behind her, Andy is trying to get the part of Christine—the lead character of Bananahead. It’s only natural for her to get more attention compared to everyone else at the audition, but with her performance, Andy manages to prove that she does have it in her. At home, her boyfriend (or husband/fiance) tells her about his new job in Malibu and asks her to go with him. It’s a temporary thing only, so Andy can take a vacation while he works. But Andy refuses, as she would rather wait for a phone call to come, letting her know of the result of the audition. She and her boyfriend are currently living in her grandmother’s house and supervising a renovation process. In a very strange manner, Andy stumbles onto a mysterious green box at her grandma’s. She opens it and finds a bunch of jewelry, a page filled with cryptic writing, and most importantly, a key. That key leads her to a locked room inside the house, and what happens inside the room (and then outside of it) forms the crux of Bananahead.

Now, here’s the problem. Bananahead is a 25-minute long short that suffers from an issue so many short films suffer from. That happens to overambition and lack of proper execution. There’s absolutely no doubt that the story it has in hand is quite fascinating. In fact, I would even say that this is the most exciting plot I’ve seen in a movie in recent times, and this is not at all an exaggeration. But Christopher Greenslate’s short is trying to bite off way more than it can actually chew. Naturally, the end result is sadly a mess. A rather interesting one nonetheless, but still a mess. And I actually find it rather sad because the premise is genuinely amazing, and there was all the possibility in the world to build something great around it. But all I see here is a grand wastage of potential, and it bothers me. This brings me to a thought I had while watching Bananahead—how could they have salvaged this? 

The most obvious way out would have been making a full-length feature. If the running length was increased by 3x or 4x, the narrative would have managed to both breathe and then flow organically. It would have allowed the director to tell this story with proper conviction. I was going through the press material, from where I came to know that Greenslate has mentioned that he deliberately avoided the usual short film tropes of using snappy editing, fast-forwarding, and moving the narrative at a preset speed. Instead, he wanted the story to go at its own pace. This further proves my point. Bananahead should have been a feature film and not a short. The alternative would be taking some of the plot points out of the story and focusing on keeping things a bit simpler and accessible. That’s actually the key to making short films viable for a larger audience. You’ve got to respect the format and realize that you don’t have much time to impress the audience. So you need to pick and choose what’ll  keep them hooked from the get-go. 

Addressing the press material again, I liked that the director is honest enough to admit that he has no idea how people are going to perceive this movie. A story like Bananahead is destined to find a cult following who would spend their days and nights making theories about it. That can only happen if it reaches enough people, though. In case you’re having second thoughts about giving this short a go, especially after reading this review, I would suggest you watch it. I am obliged to do a technical analysis, and my criticism for the film is a result of that. If you want to know, I was still fascinated, despite all the flaws and inconsistency in the narrative. 

To strengthen my argument in favor of Christopher Greenslate’s Bananahead, I would now like to list out the good things. Sally Maersk, who plays Andy, is easily the best thing about the short. She is fantastic in the title role, and twenty-five minutes seemed enough for her to make her mark. I’m not quite sure if this was deliberate or just a coincidence, but the actor who plays Andy’s boyfriend and the actor who plays the therapist (who appears later) look sort of similar. Even if it’s random, it adds an extra layer of crazy, which I quite digged. Last but not least, the short film looks absolutely stunning, and the cinematographer has done a pretty terrific job there.