Dunbar as cunning Attendant in new short film

Adrian Dunbar stars as Frankie in quirky short film The Attendant, written and directed by Ian Beattie.

Set at Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, the story follows Car Park Attendant Frankie and his encounters with financially stricken couple Paul and Cathy.

While it is an endearing tale of friendship and overcoming struggle, the short film is rather confusing at times and ends with a slightly anticlimactic and predictable conclusion.

Only 11 minutes 49 seconds in length, the film is classically short and so leaves little time for context or character development.

This makes for a succinct, easy watch, but leaves much to be desired and many questions unanswered as the piece draws to a close.

Neil Martin composes the music, with serene piano keys accompanying each transition. This gives a homely, nostalgic feel, and is possibly the highlight of this short piece of drama.

The first scene begins with Cathy (played by Abigail McGibbon) pulling into the Giant’s Causeway car park to speak with Frankie. This acts as a good scene-setter as we get to know the two main characters in the film.

Frankie is portrayed interestingly by Dunbar, who is known for playing Superintendent Ted Hastings in Line of Duty.

Easily the most engaging character in the film, Frankie is equal parts comforting and unnerving, provoking much intrigue later on as to how exactly he has made his living.

He explains to Cathy early in the film that he is approaching his 50^th birthday, having worked at the car park for 20 years. He says he always planned to retire at 50, but that this is “his car park”, and it needs him. He even claims it is the busiest car park in all of Northern Ireland.

The scene then transitions to Cathy’s home, where her partner Paul is upset about his continued struggles to escape unemployment. Banker Maxwell tells him that they have 30 days to pay their outstanding mortgage payments, or they will have to give up the house.

We then meet Frankie’s associate Tony, whose job or role in the film is rather unclear; there are shades of Netflix’s Top Boy as seemingly unofficial payments are transferred across the table in a paper bag.

My initial thought was that Frankie was secretly some kind of money laundering drug lord, but on further inspection he could just have been running an unofficial car park. Either way, Beattie leaves many questions unanswered, be that intentionally or otherwise.

We see Dunbar celebrating his 50^th birthday alone, then the next day Cathy receives a card with a car park locker key and the short film’s key phrase or even parable: “Remember, something always turns up!”

From this point on the ending is inevitable; and could probably have been expanded to include a little more jeopardy or at least entertainment. It would certainly have been fun to find out more about where Frankie has got all his “paper bag money” from.

Though there was a happy ending, which does leave you trusting the good in people just a little more than before.

As it is so short in length and unoffensive in nature, I would say it couldn’t hurt to give Beattie and Dunbar’s creation a watch. But don’t expect it to change your life too much.

Rating: 2/5 stars