MISS FORTUNATE
DIRECTED BY ELLA JONES
UNITED KINGDOM // 2020
15 MINS
Scarlet's mum has died, leaving her with two cats, a huge tax bill and a crush on a boy she can't talk to. A comedy-drama about grief, in which a young woman loses her mother, and finds herself.
Reflective Encounters
“The dilemma of modern dating is parodied in Miss Fortunate, Ella Jones’ melodrama on the grieving process. Scarlett (Molly O’Shea, who also writes) contends with nosebleeds, unanswered texts, and dying plants, but none of the above are as tough as the weeks following the death of her mother.
As family friends come to her ghostly home to console and help clear up, Scarlett can barely speak, let alone make important choices. Needing someone to help carry the coffin, she practices taking bra selfies to lure Tinder matches. When she goes to the funeral parlour, Scarlett distracts herself from the reality before her by drafting texts to suitors. Soft lighting emphasises Jones’ attention to detail. The dried lipstick on an untouched wine glass, the dirty draped shirts on a chair that compliments colours. The vividness of colour reflects the way that trauma sticks in the mind, and calls to mind the bold melodramas of Douglas Sirk or Pedro Almodóvar. Ben Whishaw appears for a scene as an unsympathetic taxman, providing an edge of class. Ultimately, Miss Fortunate focusses on a woman’s waves of pain, and builds to a powerful ritual of symbolic catharsis.”
— Ben Flanagan
Director’s Statement
Miss Fortunate is a comedy-drama about grief, in which a young woman loses her mother, and finds herself.It is not afraid of treading the difficult and sometimes painful line between comedy and tragedy; its pops of eccentric wit are firmly rooted in a complex character exploration requiring complete emotional-truthfulness.
Visually, I wanted to reflect this delicate tone, drawing inspiration from Almodóvar and Jeunet, the photography of Laura Stevens and the paintings of Otto Dix, to create a distinctive visual world that represented the unconventional, eclectic beauty of Scarlet, her mother and their home.
I used light and framing to underscore Scarlet’s journey - at the start, time has stopped for Scarlet, with the curtains drawn to accentuate the sense of this as a space in waiting.
When the women strip Scarlet’s mother’s room and daylight streams in, the transformation is brutal and raw – a plaster ripped from the skin. Yet as light illuminates dust from the untouched sheets, the space becomes something new and beautiful.
Writer Molly O’Shea says she’s never known a period of time more peppered with comedy than the months following the death of her mother. After all, light is most visible in the dark.
Filmmaker Bio
Ella’s short films have played at festivals internationally and she has two features in late stage development.
Her TV directing work includes Series Two of BBC3 Comedy Enterprice, currently nominated for ‘Best Comedy Series’ at the Broadcast Digital Awards.