Missing

A man, annoyed, late, on a bus. Beside him sits a girl. He recognises her, eventually. She's in the paper, a missing person. By the time he's twigged, she's gone, but that's not the whole of it.

This is an impressive film, managing to imply and suggest with a graceful economy. Tim McInnerny, buttoned into a tweedy three-piece suit is frustrated, running late, "put your mother on" and all that. As Sarah, Lauren Socha is affecting, a passing moment on a bus becoming a deeper confrontation, a more meaningful encounter. Her brother Michael has a fair few short credits and is now starting to acquire feature work at a regular rate - she's no less of a talent, luckier in part because of her role in Channel 4 superhero-type show Misfits. McInnerny's a veteran, and they work well together, drawing well from Luke Rodgers and James Tyler's script.

Rodgers also directs, and while at five minutes it's a short short there's an efficiency to it that's credible. With only a handful of scenes it manages to do a lot in a small space, and that's down to the talent of those involved. Shooting on a London bridge isn't the easiest of environments, and it's hard to get things down when you're operating in a space like the back of a bus. The measure of the best shorts is that they'd lose something if they were longer, a sonnet with any more lines would be a shame, and this is the case here. Missing is one you should not miss.