From writer Cat White, directed by White and Phoebe Torrance, Fifty-Four Days is a short film of great emotional depth. The film masterfully weaves a profound sense significance from the perspective of a family who have recently suffered a sudden and tragic loss. While the film conveys the grief of the whole family after losing a father and a husband, it is Delroy’s daughter, Ruby, with whom we are most aligned in this narrative. In the wake of her father’s suicide, Ruby desperately wants to honour the life that has been lost. Her way of doing this is to take up wild swimming. She faces the grief very directly, choosing the lake where her father drowned himself as the place to undertake this symbolic ritual. Ruby wants to do this as a family, hoping to include her brother, Josh, in the swimming. Much to her distress, Josh is extremely distant, barely seeming to communicate anything at all. But while the silent brooding may appear like anger, Josh’s reticence cloaks his own grief as well as his own ways of honouring the life of his father. Initially Ruby is unable to see beyond her brother’s silence which leads to points of friction within the family. She is hurt that Josh won’t support her in the morning swimming routine.
Despite this, Ruby meets someone who is able to help her fulfil this ritual. Gloria is a seasoned wild swimmer, and is more than willing to offer help and advice. As the days roll by, Ruby opens up to Gloria about the challenge she has set herself: she wants to swim every morning for fifty-four days. One day for each year of her father’s life. Ruby’s wild swimming almost comes to a halt one day when she gets overwhelmed in the water. Thankfully this happens to be the day her brother had followed her to the lake. The traumatic event force emotions to the surface and Ruby confronts her brother about his anger and his distance. In the heat of their argument, Ruby’s mother steps in to let Ruby know that Josh has been fulfilling his own rituals in memory of their father. She shows Ruby sunflowers that Josh has been growing and caring for. Fifty-four of them. Josh couldn’t communicate his feelings, but this didn’t mean he wasn’t feeling them. And it didn’t mean he was trying to forget. The sunflowers were his father’s favourites because they always look towards the sun. The fact they both chose to honour every year of his life unites them in a certain way. Two members of the same family may grieve the same person differently, but ultimately are joined in their pain.
Fifty-Four Days hits you like a punch in the chest. I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me for the next hour or so. The performances of Cat White as Ruby and Joshua Williams as Josh are so devastatingly realistic that witnessing their pain feels akin to experiencing loss yourself. Juliet Cowan as their mother captures the difficulty of suddenly having to hold a family in crisis together, and to do it when you yourself are also experiencing a huge loss. Cowan captures the feeling of extending your arms around your loved ones when it feels like they’re falling apart, desperately trying to keep them upright. She portrays the mother keeping her remaining crew afloat despite there being a huge hole in the hull. Delroy Brown as husband to Val, father to Ruby and Josh, manages to give viewers a sense of the fifty-four years leading up to his suicide in the sense that we can feel how his death will create a huge gap in the family dynamic. On the surface he seems like a happy family man, but of course what lies beneath isn’t always a reflection of this. Gloria (Celia Imrie) is an excellent peripheral character, existing outside the intense emotional family turmoil. Imrie provides some truly touching moments, reflecting how the random connections we make in life can be so very important.
A stunningly emotional film.
Watch the trailer below!