Joel Fry-days
Adam, Exposed
GIF from @derekstilinski
This is an interesting short to compare with I, Samurai. Both are about a troubled young person engaging in destructive behavior, but the way the two stories address this are very different. This key difference between them is why Exposed ultimately works for me where I, Samurai doesn’t.
Lacking personal connections of her own, Erin steals others’. She takes photos from the machine at the pharmacy, filling carefully labeled albums and showing them to anyone she can get to look at them. She makes up stories about “her” boyfriend, “her” baby, and “her” dog, all snapshots from other people’s lives.
At first, I thought Erin was stalking someone, maybe an ex or someone she wanted to date. But she steals photos compulsively, and she doesn’t know any of the people whose pictures she takes. Which isn’t to say her actions aren’t harmful, of course. Stealing people’s private photos is creepy even if it isn’t targeted—some of the photos Erin takes are incredibly personal, and she uses a few of them in pretty violating ways. But we see how her theft is a reflection of her own issues and pain, and we see that the hurt she causes isn’t malicious. That doesn’t excuse it, but it helps us understand where she’s coming from. While I, Samurai hits the “unstable loner is dangerous” button pretty hard, Exposed goes more for “unstable loner is in desperate need of someone to see her.”
(Side note: we shouldn’t ignore another key difference here, that the loner in I, Samurai is a Black teenage boy, while the one in Exposed is a young white woman, which is a probable factor how in Erin is portrayed compared to Jacob.)
Adam is a young man who works at the pharmacy. He’s on the receiving end of some of the harm Erin causes—she doesn’t steal any of his photos, but he has to deal with the fallout of angry customers who don’t know why some of their pictures are missing. We see him get reamed out by a new bride, who, to be fair, is very rightfully upset at the thought that her private honeymoon photos might have ended up in someone else’s hands. But she comes in really hot. She checks Adam’s name tag so she can use his name in a pointed, accusatory manner, she vows to get him fired, and she warns that she’s calling the police. For his part, soft-spoken Adam is rolling out his best customer service tactics, mildly suggesting the possibility of common technical issues and offering to reprint the photos. The louder and more upset the bride gets, the quieter and more flustered Adam gets. By the end of this confrontation, he’s all but gone into a freeze response, just waiting for it to be over.
But that customer service role puts Adam in the best position to be able to see Erin. Even small interactions with a friendly but professional air—eye contact and, “Can I help you?”, a small smile and, “I’ll be with you in a minute”—are more than she’s used to. She’s so deep in the fantasy of her photo life that she doesn’t really know what to do with an actual person reaching out to her, not to mention she doesn’t really want to be attracting an employee’s attention when she’s trying to swipe somebody’s pictures. However, Adam is kind, quiet, and observant, and he’s able to put a few mysteries about Erin together, beyond just what he sees at the pharmacy.
