DARCINE’S DAY - the short film

Darcine Thomas is recently divorced and starting over, but she's struggling to get back on her feet. Looking for work, she pursues a series of opportunities from a business idea to a job opening, but comes up against obstacles at every turn.

Her only help comes from a well-meaning friend, but when she realizes just what is being asked of her, she faces a difficult choice between her dignity or remaining unseen for the help she really needs.

Directed and written by Aaron Goffman, this quiet, restrained drama follows the efforts of one woman trying her best to get her life back on track after a broken marriage, only to find herself facing a growing pile of difficulties. Told with compassion and a clear-eyed sense of observation, it captures just how easily it is for someone to slip through society's cracks -- and how hard it can be to pull yourself out of an abyss that only seems to deepen with each failed effort.

The storytelling is gentle and perceptive, much like the main character of Darcine herself, charting her day as she goes about her life and schedule, which is filled with interviews, appointments and meetings. Captured in an even-handed visual realism that can veer from optimistic to drab, depending on the mood, Darcine's life events seem ordinary: a meeting with a loan officer, a job interview for a teaching post. But these ordinary assignations carry great import and high stakes for Darcine, which is why it hits even harder when she faces one disappointment after another.

As Darcine, actor Kyla Diane Kennedy offers a beautifully sympathetic and understated performance, conveying Darcine's intelligence and strength. But as the narrative progresses, our fuller understanding of her situation also unfolds, making her setbacks all the more painful for her and us. The tone of the film is never melodramatic and Darcine is never self-pitying, but even her fortitude falters as her disappointments accumulate. When she's presented with a helping hand, however, she is faced with just how far she will go to get a foothold at a low point that only seems to deepen with each difficulty.

Sensitive, empathetic yet refusing easy comfort, DARCINE'S DAY conveys the dilemmas of "hidden homelessness," when people lack stable housing but stay with friends or family as they look for work and benefits. They're not technically counted among those experiencing homelessness and therefore don't often access services. But, as the film shows, they're often just a few setbacks away from being truly unhoused, with no place to stay and no safety net to catch them. It's a lonely, isolating space, when goodwill and resources are dwindling and there is nowhere else to go and no one else to lean upon.