It's The 'Crushing Pennies' Review

Here it is the review I’ve been promising to write about local filmmaker Ryan Casey’s new film – Crushing Pennies.
The movie focuses on Irene (Leah Dashe) and Gabe (Jesse Murphy) who seem to have found that their current relationship has become claustrophobic. Through this they start to have shared delusions, these delusions come in the form of people that Leah and Gabe interact with on a daily basis.
The problem with this is that the delusions start to put a bigger strain on them, as they start to pick up their habits. This causes Gabe to start using drugs and Irene to drink a lot.
Yet, does this drive Gabe and Irene to their doom or do they find a way to fix it? I’m not going to say, you’ll just have to find out for yourself or if you don’t mind spoilers you can read on. If you want to see what I thought about the film just scroll to the bottom of the review, it will be spoiler free.
SPOILERS START
Gabe and Irene do seek the help of a marriage counselor and his advice is to kill the delusions. This part I really liked and wish it was a bit longer, because the movie takes a turn into a more horror feel and it’s great.
Yet, that would be the biggest problem I have with the film is how short it is. I know it’s a short film, but the story has great potential and the direction it goes into I felt could have been flushed out some more.
SPOILERS END
Now to give my feelings about the movie without giving anything away, I liked the film. The greatest things that this movie has to offer are its style and its lead actress, Leah Dashe.
Ryan Casey’s style is very good; he has a very unique eye and it translates onto the screen very well. I would be very interested in seeing his future films.
Now, Leah Dashe was great and could have a great acting career ahead of her. She stands out right from the start and continues to be interesting to watch until the end.
The lighting in the movie is done well; the opening in the grocery store is very bright and colorful and looks very high budget. The only scene I’m going to pick on is the first scene in the apartment, where Irene is sitting on the floor with CD’s. That scene was very dark, but other than that I would have to give credit to David Sikora for doing a good job.
The biggest flaw this movie has is its story. The story is a very interesting idea and it’s told well until the very end. The movie does have a twist and the twist is very clever, that’s not the problem I have. The problem is the movie not flushing out my favorite part of the film and the most interesting part and if you read above or seen the movie you know what I’m talking about.
Summing everything up, the movie has great style and a great performance by Leah Dashe. I know this is a stepping stone for Ryan Casey and it’s a really good stepping stone, I’m interested in seeing where he goes from here.