Homeless: Putrid Relationships, Newfound Friendships, and A Lovely Dog Caught in Between

Rikhil Bahadur’s Homeless, co-written with Shachi Sharma, is a personal film that combines the experience of the pandemic with their experience of a new country. Following an unwanted dog who eventually experiences abandonment and then a contented kind of homelessness, the 18-minute film ends by being a modest little feel-good story. 

Linda (Evelyn Tran) and Katie (Sam van Gogh) have 99 problems and they want to believe the dog is the worst of it, but Roufus (Rocco the Adorabull) would not even make top ten if they were being honest. An all around terrible relationship that needs a long, difficult talk that may or may not end in a breakup, the two project it all onto the menace of the generally sad and neglected Roufus. A high energy dog, left locked up at home all day, destroys furniture. Only the dog’s owners could be surprised. 

The first half of the film is used entirely to illustrate this ghastly living situation (it looks as if Katie is dependent on Linda), culminating in Roufus’ abandonment. The couple exits the frame; Roufus follows as soon as he can, and so does the audience. Which is just as well, because you cannot help but think about Katie—after all, only the dog is free of Linda. 

Somewhere amidst this sorry scene, the film introduces Fred (Blakely David) to kick off a A Street Cat Named Bob sort of arc, as if considering a Marley & Me story and then thinking better of it. The untrainability that bothered Linda and Katie seems to vanish in seconds with Fred. Fred is homeless but not addicted, allowing their newfound friendship to be a fairly straightforward affair notwithstanding an attempted robbery/kidnapping.  

A sweet film with a sweeter dog, Homeless is as much about hope as it is about the world turning upside down away from home. The entire Linda and Katie section is brimming with that feeling: a bad relationship solidifying in the shadow of lockdown, the destabilised home, and then returning to the old ways of life while little of it has survived. Sweet, harmless Roufus has the burden of carrying it all within himself.  

Watch Homeless Short Film Trailer