SWEET AS A NUT
A timid man has an interesting conversation with the owner of London sweetshop,
who isn't all that he seems.
Imagine - if you can - shopping in London. You walk into a sweet shop (‘candy store’ or ‘confectionary’, in Uncle Sam’s English), and the proprietor happens to be either Hatchet Harry or Bricktop. Would be a bit of an unsettling surprise, right?
Well, if you’re still reading this review, that means you immediately recognized the iconic character names above, having played key roles in two early Guy Ritchie movies: Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch.
This also means you have a fondness for such movies and will surely want to know more about Jay Creek’s deeply devilish and sardonic, ‘Sweet As A Nut’.
If you still have no idea what I’m harping on about, but remain out of morbid curiosity… then you probably have nothing better to do. So feel free to tag along!
Meet Tom: in his early-forties, out shopping along one of London’s many bustling high-streets. Or as colloquially described in this story:
Grey. Dour. Colder than a witch’s tit. This is a London street at its finest.
While out and about, Tom discovers ‘Sweet as a Nut’, a distinctively old-fashioned and warmly idiosyncratic sweet shop that stands out amongst a row of non-descript, banal stores on the high-street.
Intrigued, Tom ventures inside to find a beautifully preserved, Victorian-style confectionary. Understandably, everything about this venerable setting takes Tom’s breath away. Which makes it all-the-more disconcerting when his fanciful reverie is smashed to smithereens when interrupted by a man behind the counter;
A gravelly, Cockney bark cuts his reverence in half.
HARRY
What the fuck do you want?
Harry is not Willy Wonka.
No, Harry is an intimidating ‘towering hulk of a man’ with the demeanor and general looks of a classic cockney East London gangster. In short… not someone you mess around with.
Squirming, and slowly dissolving into a puddle of befuddlement and dread, Tom spends the next few agonizing minutes vacillating between ordering what he wants versus what Harry tells him to buy.
TOM
Ahem. Can I please have some lemon sherberts?
Harry looks down at Tom.
HARRY
Lemon Sherbets?
TOM
Uh, yes please.
HARRY
Lemon, fuckin’ sherbets?!
What follows is a rather uncomfortable exchange in which Harry insists Tom check out a variety of other options... ones that may or may not be legal. Which leaves poor Tom flummoxed and beside himself.
Like Tom, the audience for this film will be excitedly disoriented and baffled by the end.
And that’s the appealing point of Sweet as a Nut. Not everything or everyone is what or whom they appear to be. Choc-full of succulent surprises and tasty twists, this script is much akin to Mr. Gump’s enduring box of chocolates:
You never know what you might get, but you know it’ll taste good.
This sly short is ideal material for the filmmaker experimenting with various narrative styles. And: specifically appealing to those who want to emulate the eccentric directing panache of Guy Ritchie and Edgar Wright.
Invariably, what you’ll produce will be… well, ‘sweet as a nut’!
