"Car Safety"

12 November 2024

40s

Where would you rather be?

Women's Aid's recent 'Van Wife' film used life on the road to highlight coercive control. This 40" follow-up ('Van Wife' was over ten minutes long) takes a left turn and uses the language of road safety ads to drive home another grim message.

A woman has crashed her car and lies stricken on the tarmac as the narrator says: "The road can be deadly, so buckle up, think, and always wear your seatbelt." So far, so familiar, right? Yet just as a Good Samaritan arrives on the scene, the whole script is flipped.

The protagonist is now on the kitchen floor, surrounded by glass as the front door slams shut. A woman is three times more likely to be killed by her partner than by not wearing her seatbelt. Home is where the hurt is, not the open road.

The execution by director Emma Branderhorst keeps the focus on the protagonist with as little camera movement as possible, and this maximises the impact of the reveal.

UK

Charities