Impulses: Kleptomania and Other People’s Things is a Love Story for the Ages

Rajendra Thakurathi’s 10-minute comedy Impulses gives a humorous turn to what is otherwise a fairly painful experience: controlling an impulse control disorder. Revolving around a kleptomaniac protagonist and the camera of her interviewer, this neurotic comedy is well worth repeat viewing for Brooklyn McDaris’ performance.

Disorder reigns supreme in this story. Project partners do not show up, police do show up, batteries die, impulses win—and all almost without Lia’s (Lena Coco Hunter) camera moving from its general position. Lia is meeting Remy (McDaris) at the beach for a university project on impulse control disorders; Remy’s kleptomania is the perfect subject. The 3-month clean track should be no hindrance.

The film brilliantly deploys both characters’ neuroses. Lia’s anxious disposition translates to a sensitive interview in a public place, no seating for miles—Remy keeps shifting from foot to foot as her discomfort escalates—while Remy’s itch to get her hands on something makes the editing start glitching. It is the sort of interaction that could so easily slip into a loop of compliments and nervous laughter, but the two characters establish a more honest, but no better equation of clumsy awkwardness.

Their joint contribution is the excellent score whipped up with Lia’s words in Remy’s head: “F**k, there’s a cop,” a thrumming, scary, fun piece that feels like the ancient song of the anxious folk, now awakening in Remy’s blood. Lia has had to rush off and there is nothing between Remy and the camera that cannot stop watching her, no less uncomfortable a presence than a human (one more astute than Lia).

The conclusion was always meant to be predictable, which is its own tragedy, but it is the hilarious culmination of the tension that Remy could not escape and Lia could not perceive—characters of disaster in a comedy of neuroses that is just plain sad underneath it all.

Watch Impulses Short Film