Accompanied by melancholic piano and strings, an emotionally drained couple sits in the back of a cab making a late-night run to the airport, staring quietly at the city as it blurs by. This all-too-familiar fallout from a day of arguing is the subject of the short film We’ll Find Something, an official selection at the 2015 SXSW Film Festival, written and directed by Casey Gooden. The film follows a couple, played by Amy Seimetz (of AMC’s The Killing) and Shane Carruth (writer and director of Primer and Upstream Color), through an evening in New York City as they search for a restaurant that offers both a short wait time and paleo-friendly food. Manhattan’s countless restaurants give endless dining options, which in this case further exacerbates tensions in the relationship.
The stressful moments between couples that are usually private are on full display in this 12-minute feature. Intensified by low blood sugar, tense interactions between the couple point to underlying problems in the relationship. Miscommunications, anxiety, snarky comments, insecurities, emotional manipulation: they’re all here, and they’re not pretty.
Gooden, who has directed a handful of other shorts, does an excellent job highlighting the pitfalls of the modern relationship. His message — that those closest to us often see us at our worst and, sometimes, the sense of familiarity fostered in long-term relationships can lead people to take each other for granted — is a poignant one, especially at this stress-filled time of year.