Mendo’s Carousel: Growing Past Old Patterns in Drama on the Complicated Nature of Grief

David Michael Maurer’s Mendo’s Carousel comes alive with the performance of Edi Gathegi as its deuteragonist in a frictious story of two people sharing in—and exchanging with each other—love and resentment of a dead man. 

Opening with a series of cuts and an ominous score, the film seems to signal its foray into horror/thriller territory, but turns out, it is just young Liza (Otmara Marrero), up to her elbows in self-destructive grief and ready to rob her dead father’s old business partner and friend. While Marrero successfully imbues Liza with stormy impulsiveness, Gathegi uses Arthur’s own grief to concoct a grounding presence.

Even before the literal words are uttered, it is understood that the man is now meant to be the replacement father—and certainly bellowing the lines, “What do you want from me?” “I want you to go out into the world and be a better person,” at each other does scream parent-teenager relationship, to say nothing of how well Marrero turns Liza into a grubby child faced by Arthur’s discontent—but the minor wrench in that plan is the financial devastation left behind by the actual father for daughter and friend both. It brings out the worst in the still living: thieving, coldness (and a gold bracelet that should never have seen the light of day but let us not speak ill of the dead’s tastes). 

Todd Grinnell makes a brief appearance in this two-hander as a customer who knows everyone here dead and alive, serving as a reminder to Liza and Arthur to throw in affection in the mix where of late there has been only bitterness. Civility for appearances thaws into actual fondness. Change the setting from bankrupt dry cleaning shop to living room, and they are the picture of the usual family. 

Just about everything falls second to the actors’ performances who elevate a list of familiar plot points into something compelling and worth the camera’s attention. Even the bracelet is rather becoming when it is on Liza. 

Watch Mendo’s Carousel Short Film