King Ed: Co-Dependence and Coming of Age in Surreal Comedy

Nick Fascitelli’s comedy King Ed is trippy and touching and funny in that self-conscious, meta way we all love and hate. The 23-minute film follows Edward in his quest to find his one true love, but first he must get over his bad boyfriend who has swooningly good taste in music and sickeningly bad taste in everything else. With a ketamine snorting, omnipotent oracle in tow, Ed will do a lot to find his musical soulmate, come what crime may. 

Hiding underneath an unabashed pursuit of love, almost unnatural in the current zeitgeist, is an altogether different beast—certainly of a different species than say, getting back together with the astoundingly, obliviously loathsome ex, Joseph (played by Fascitelli, which makes the whole thing funnier). 

But that comes at the end of the journey our hero (Brendan Scannell) must undertake to find the creator of a legendary playlist, the driving force behind his romantic choices. Along the way, there will be a choir conductor to get to know and closed premises to trespass, to say nothing of the regrettable past choices to revisit (which includes a brief appearance by an exhortatory Jack Plotnick, whom this writer personally loved to hate as Brett Partridge in The Mentalist). 

Ed is adorably pitiable—enough that he might benefit from a few visits to a psychoanalyst—and it lends the film a classic teen coming-of-age charm even though the character is thirty-four. It is all depressingly comical, the star of which is the Ketamine Oracle (Sufe Bradshaw) and her singular eyewear. With the ability to be anywhere and do anything (like turn the volume down on Joseph or steal his panini), the Oracle is the audience proxy and her commentary is delightfully snide. Of course, one should expect no less when her introduction (the film’s opening scene in which Ed seeks the latest bout of therapy to get over Joseph) is so deadpan in its surreality. 

King Ed wants you to recall growing up in the 90s (if you can), wants you to feel the confusion and fear of reaching adulthood, and then be amused by the whole sorry mess of it. It is why the use of Galactic Love by The Tempers will feel exactly right. But when the thematically well-hinted climax beckons, the score turns more sincere and urgent. Getting through the locked gate keeping him from his soulmate, Ed is finally approaching emotional maturity a la Hollywood. It is no joking matter. 

Watch King Ed Short Film Trailer