''David'' is a 2020 American

comedy-drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

short film, directed by

Zach Woods Zachary Woods (born September 25, 1984) is an American actor, comedian, writer, director and producer. He is best known for his roles as a series regular for three seasons as Gabe Lewis on the NBC sitcom ''The Office'', as Jared Dunn on the HBO ...

and written by Woods and Brandon Gardner. It stars

Will Ferrell John William Ferrell (; born July 16, 1967) is an American actor, comedian, and producer. He first established himself in the mid-1990s as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy show ''Saturday Night Live'', where he performed from 1995 to 200 ...

William Jackson Harper William Fitzgerald Harper (born February 8, 1980), known professionally as William Jackson Harper, is an American actor and playwright. He is best known for his role as Chidi Anagonye on the NBC comedy ''The Good Place'' (2016–2020), for which ...

and

Fred Hechinger Fred Hechinger (born ) is an American actor. He is best known for playing Trevor in the coming-of-age film ''Eighth Grade'', John Calley in the Western drama ''News of the World'', and Ethan Russell in the psychological thriller '' The Woman in ...

. It concerns a therapist's attempts to balance his relationships between his wrestler son and his suicidal patient, both named David. It is distributed worldwide by the International Production & Distribution company Salaud Morisset. It had its world premiere at the

2020 Toronto International Film Festival The 2020 Toronto International Film Festival, the 45th event in the Toronto International Film Festival series, was held from September 10 to 21, 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto, the festival took place primarily on an online stream ...

on September 11, 2020. It was the only American short film selected for the 2020

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...

Plot

David calls his therapist to schedule an appointment after having suicidal thoughts. As they are in the middle of a session, a young man in a wrestler's uniform runs up and bangs on the window. The therapist tells David to ignore him, but the young man comes in. It turns out that the young man, also named David, is the therapist's son and was preparing for a match he is to have with a "beast" named Andy Doan. The therapist was supposed to attend, but he chose to put it off in favor of helping David. Despite David saying it is okay to postpone the session, the therapist insists that he stay and that young David leave. Father and son get into an argument about their relationship and the therapist's insistence that David's problem is more important, despite David becoming more and more detached from the situation. When young David claims that he will get a wrestler's scholarship, the therapist tells him that he will not because he barely made the team, resulting in young David telling him that he is not a good father. The therapist tells him that it is difficult to take back things that have been said and young David cries. David, sympathizing with young David, goes up and hugs him. Later, young David wrestles Andy Doan and loses almost immediately. As he stands back up, he looks into the crowd to see both his father and David, who stand up and applaud his effort, have come to see him and smiles.

Cast

as Therapist *

as David *

as David *Corey Jantzen as Andy Doan *Sebastian Vale as Referee

Release

The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2020. The film was initially set to world premiere at the

2020 Cannes Film Festival The 73rd annual Cannes Film Festival was scheduled to take place from 12 to 23 May 2020. On 13 January 2020, Spike Lee was named as the president of the Jury. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in France, festival management announced on 14 ...

in May 2020, prior to its cancellation due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. It was also set to screen at the

Telluride Film Festival The Telluride Film Festival (TFF) is a film festival held annually in Telluride, Colorado during Labor Day weekend (the first Monday in September). The 49th edition took place on September 2 -6, 2022. History First held on 30 August 1974, th ...

in September 2020, prior to its cancellation. It was released on the

Team Coco A team is a group of individuals (human or non-human) working together to achieve their goal. As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, " team is a group of people who are interdependent with respect to infor ...

YouTube channel on December 1, 2021.

Awards

Since its launch, the film has been selected in many festivals around the world.

References

External links

*{{IMDb title, 12974818 2020 films 2020 short films American short films 2020 comedy-drama films 2020s English-language films