A Therapy (Roman Polanski, 2012, France)

A Therapy opens with a bespectacled Ben Kingsley sitting at an office desk, to the sound of a clicking clock. The door buzzer rings and Kingsley gets up to answer it. A woman is at the door (Helena Bonham Carter), who takes off her coat and goes to sit down. She is wearing shades and removes her Prada shoes. She lays down on the therapist's couch and begins recounting a dream she had last night. She tells the therapist that it was a nightmare she had last night. There was a rock concert, but she couldn't hear the music. 

She asks the therapist what she means. Kingsley meanwhile looks at her coat, as Carter complains about her family life growing up. Kingsley the therapist removes his glasses, as the camera pans out from him. He puts down his notebook and begins to slowly get up from his chair. He begins to approach the fur-collar purple coat from the coat rack. He touches the coat and breathes a sight. He then removes the coat from the rack and holds it to his face and body. The music - from famed composer Alexandre Desplat - swells romantically as he begins to model the coat in front of the mirror.

He eventually puts the entire coat on, as his patient says "What does it all mean?" The film ends with a title card "PRADA SUITS EVERYONE." A Therapy is a reasonably charming short, and you can tell that Polanski had a bit of fun with it. Does it work as an ad for Prada? We think it does work, although anything with two stars of this caliber would probably work to sell the product in question. For those interested in advertising, A Therapy is probably worth a look, but it will be uninteresting to most others.

6/10