This short won the Academy Award for Live Action Short. There will be spoilers ahead:
This short concerns a man named Peter, an aid worker for a relief organization who realizes that he's forgotten to vote on election night. This is after he chastises two friends in a bar over what he takes to be racist comments, because, in my view, he's an overly sensitive clod. With the polls closing in 20 minutes he races out to vote, hopping in a cab.
The cab driver is absolutely and with no apologies a racist and his comments definitely offend Peter, who argues with the driver and then demands he stop the cab because he no longer wishes to stay and listen to those kinds of remarks-even though he's losing precious time.
Peter then encounters a few other drivers, all of whom make remarks he deems (with some justice in most cases) as objectionable, one of them a spectacularly funny rant by a foreign driver about kebab being replaced by a sushi place and the Japanese! Mr. Sensitivity finally reaches the polling place and tries to get in but is told he's too late by a black poll worker. He pleads for her to let him come in and makes a remark that, had he heard someone else say it, he would have called them a racist, which is just what the poll worker says he is and he's accosted by a man who says something outrageous in challenging him on his behavior and then punches him.
The short ends with Peter making his way back to the bar and sitting down with the two he called "racist" in the beginning.. I take the ending as an indication that he's been given food for thought and maybe he won't be quite so quick to judge in the future.
This short is well worth tracking down. Most recommended.
This short concerns a man named Peter, an aid worker for a relief organization who realizes that he's forgotten to vote on election night. This is after he chastises two friends in a bar over what he takes to be racist comments, because, in my view, he's an overly sensitive clod. With the polls closing in 20 minutes he races out to vote, hopping in a cab.
The cab driver is absolutely and with no apologies a racist and his comments definitely offend Peter, who argues with the driver and then demands he stop the cab because he no longer wishes to stay and listen to those kinds of remarks-even though he's losing precious time.
Peter then encounters a few other drivers, all of whom make remarks he deems (with some justice in most cases) as objectionable, one of them a spectacularly funny rant by a foreign driver about kebab being replaced by a sushi place and the Japanese! Mr. Sensitivity finally reaches the polling place and tries to get in but is told he's too late by a black poll worker. He pleads for her to let him come in and makes a remark that, had he heard someone else say it, he would have called them a racist, which is just what the poll worker says he is and he's accosted by a man who says something outrageous in challenging him on his behavior and then punches him.
The short ends with Peter making his way back to the bar and sitting down with the two he called "racist" in the beginning.. I take the ending as an indication that he's been given food for thought and maybe he won't be quite so quick to judge in the future.
This short is well worth tracking down. Most recommended.