Abigail: A Powerhouse Performance in Drama About End of Life and Heartbreak

Max Hechtman and Christonikos Tsalikis’s Abigail, written by Jason K. Allen, Max Hechtman, and Meryl Hechtman, is a view into the swirling, disorienting mass of grief that has woven itself into the life of an aged man without his wife.

Instead of a chronological order, the structure sandwiches the good days within the bad to show the pervasive nature of illness and mourning. The latter begins its course long before death and stays an even longer time afterwards. When the film opens, the weight of loss has ravaged Elmer (Richie Allen). A year has passed since his wife Abigail’s (Elvira Tortora) death. Alone, and specifically alone without Abigail, Elmer has little to take him from day to day. The title of the film is an interesting glimpse into its story. On a plot level, it is Elmer’s story. By sheer virtue of this, it is fundamentally a story about Abigail.

The influence of Michael Haneke’s Amour is visible in a moment by the kitchen sink as Abigail begins to grasp the fate awaiting her. The running water is replaced by the whistling kettle but the impending (and ongoing) grief of the latter unmistakably reminds you of the former. Richie Allan is excruciating in his grief, and the obvious highlight of the film. He reveals new layers to heartbreak as he grapples with the prospect of definitively parting with his most beloved. He breaks your heart over and over for the duration of the film and arrests the entirety of your mind within the limits of each scene.

The plot hinges itself on a visit to Abigail’s grave, from which it then radiates out into flashbacks. In the present, life seems to nudge its way into Elmer as a somewhat eccentric young girl (Leilani Marie Vasquez) whose very cheerfulness feels alien in a story so bleak with the weight of despair makes friends with him. Instinct compels him to set aside pain so that it does not burn the child the same as it has burned him. In return, she continues being her Luna Lovegood self amidst a Mike Flanagan-esque desaturated world and it is enough.

The penultimate scene reveals Abigail’s last, and though one would think this is where the film would be its most devastating, that honour is saved for the final scene in the cemetery. The very mobile camera removes any room for distance. Allen delivers with gut-wrenching power. You can only feel the leaden weight within.

Watch Abigail Short Film Trailer