Posted: 08/20/2011

The Booth at the End

(2011)

by Joe Sanders

Watch Season One for free at Hulu.com

An elderly woman who wants her husband’s Alzheimer’s to disappear. A man who wants to become a successful painter. A teenage girl who wants to be prettier. These are some of the clients of the nameless man who sits in the booth at the end.

Set exclusively in a small diner in an unnamed city, Christopher Kubasik’s new web series dares to ask its audience: What do you want, and what are you willing to do get it? Cure for Alzheimer’s? No problem. Just set off a bomb in a crowded restaurant. Want to have your faith in God restored? Have a child. Want to hook up with a playboy centerfold? All you have to do is devote the next ten weeks of your life to keeping a four-year-old child safe from any harm. Anything is possible to the Man and his little black book, as long as you complete the task he gives you and return to the booth to tell him about it.

Xander Berkeley (24) stars as the unapologetic “Man”, and his performance is smooth and haunting with a lot of great moments of incredible depth. He’s guaranteed to seize your interest in the very first scene. The rest of the cast is full of people that you may not recognize, but all are perfectly suited for their roles, and it’s fascinating to watch their different arcs and character wants change and evolve over the five episodes.

Between the ensemble cast and the isolated setting, The Booth at the End takes on a wonderful theatricality. It would be great to see this performed on stage, except that the way it jumps between different characters’ storylines and the incredible cinematography would make such an endeavor extremely difficult. Everything about how the show is presented draws the audience in and creates a sort of intimacy. However, this intimacy co-exists with a distinct element of discomfort, which is derived from the series’ playful use of dramatic irony, where the audience knows more than the individual clients.

At first, it’s a little predictable to see how the different clients’ storylines will begin to intersect, but once it starts happening, the show manages to keep it fresh and interesting. The main reason it works is that not everything ties together. That would get old and annoyingly convenient very quickly. The Booth at the End manages to walk the line of structural intrigue perfectly.

Overall, the biggest criticism of the series is that it’s too short. The five episodes race by and are easily consumed in one sitting leaving the audience craving more. No word yet on if Hulu will produce more episodes of the series, but the premise is so simple, and each client’s tendency to question the rules of the world and what’s possible within this surreal little diner keeps the show constantly fresh and thought-provoking.

The first season of The Booth at the End can be found here

Joe Sanders is a playwright and college instructor in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He has a Master’s degree in playwriting and a Bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Western Michigan University, where he currently teaches Thought and Writing.

Got a problem? E-mail us at filmmonthly@gmail.com