[Note: The story of Fvoyer is told exclusively from the perspective of a single security camera in the lobby of an apartment building with no cuts, at all.]
Justin Weaton (Derek Peels) has just taken his first breaths on the “outside.” After five years of incarceration, he is a free man. The only thoughts that have kept him going while doing time are of his daughter Nichole (Nichole Hughes). He had to leave her when she was a little girl. But Justin is desperate to see her one more time before he leaves town to find a new place to start his life again.
Fvoyer is the story of Justin’s struggle to see his daughter and reconnect with her. His efforts are complicated by detectives who are staking out the apartment building Nichole lives in. Through an anonymous tip, the detectives have been informed of Justin’s impending visit. They are convinced that he is coming to abduct the girl and want to catch him in the act.
When Justin arrives at Nichole’s apartment building, he is nervous about seeing his daughter again after so long. While waiting for someone to let him in the lobby, he befriends a prostitute named Amalia (Laura Kyswaty) who is waiting for her client to let her in the building, as well. While she waits, Justin tells her about his arrest, time in jail and the reason he is there. Soon Amalia’s customer comes to the foyer and she and Justin say goodbye. A short while later, Amalia leaves the building and speaks to Justin once more. Sensing that Justin trusts her, the watchful detectives follow her and persuade her to become an informant. With information that Amalia will give them, they think they can stay ahead of Justin’s next move.
After waiting for Nichole for a while, Justin and Amalia leave the apartment building to try and track down his daughter's phone number. Shortly thereafter, we see Nichole approach the front of the building. As she does so, she receives a call from Justin…..their first contact with each other in five years. However, her mother unknowingly interrupts their call when confronting Nichole for being gone for so long. At this point, Justin knows where Nichole is. He tells her he will come back to the building to see her.
Warning: Spoiler alert!
At this point in the story we meet Brandon Moore, an ex-con who has come to exact revenge on Justin. (He is the anonymous tipper who has told the police about Justin’s planned reunion with his daughter.) The detectives’ dialogue then turns to suspicion that Brandon has set Justin up and plans to hurt him. While the police scramble to confirm this, Amalia decides to tell Justin about the stakeout. As the tension builds, Nichole runs out of the building to see her father. A few seconds later, her mother runs out to catch her and Brandon Moore trails them all. The movie ends with two shots being fired and Justin’s screams for his daughter. The audience is left to draw their own conclusions because all the action takes place outside the view of the security camera. The last visual images we are left with are a snowy video screen and fade to black.
As mentioned before, Fvoyer is shot from a single camera angle in one continuous take. The audience witnesses the entire story unfolding from the view of one video security camera in an apartment building. It is aimed at the building’s main foyer. The camera’s view and the voyeuristic nature of the footage combine to create the film’s title. Overall, I feel the idea was well conceived and the script was well written and engaging. This was a creative idea and made for a very interesting storyline.
What worked well in particular? The first kudos goes to the actors. Much like a stage play, the acting had to carry this film entirely. By and large, the actors’ voicing of the script went very well. It was appropriately intense and reserved when it needed to be. It was almost always convincing and, at worst, believable. Unfortunately the grainy video lacked detail, so I couldn’t make out the actors’ facial features for much of the film. However, I could guess what their faces probably looked like based on voice intonation in the audio. This kept me watching until the end. The only time I noticed a problem with this was near the beginning of the film when the detectives’ vocal intensity didn’t seem to match the intensity of the dialogue. However, this occurred in only one section.
The actor’s timing was also particularly good. Since there were no edits and no second takes, the actor’s were seen in a very raw form. They definitely passed the test. The dialogue was free-flowing and everyone seemed to hit their marks as well as could be expected in a film with this kind of production format.
