• Indie Short Mag TV
  • Free Film Festival Cover Letter Generator
Indie Shorts Mag
  • Home
  • Interviews
  • News
    • Film Festival News
    • Short Film News
  • Reviews
    • Short Film
    • Documentary
    • Web Series
  • Hall of Fame
  • Short Film Festival – 2025Accepting Films
  • Tutorials
    • Pre-Production
    • Post-Production
  • Submit Short Film
    • Submit Short Film for Review
    • Submit Web Series for Review
    • Interview Submission Form
No Result
View All Result
Indie Shorts Mag
  • Home
  • Interviews
  • News
    • Film Festival News
    • Short Film News
  • Reviews
    • Short Film
    • Documentary
    • Web Series
  • Hall of Fame
  • Short Film Festival – 2025Accepting Films
  • Tutorials
    • Pre-Production
    • Post-Production
  • Submit Short Film
    • Submit Short Film for Review
    • Submit Web Series for Review
    • Interview Submission Form
No Result
View All Result
Indie Shorts Mag
No Result
View All Result

Are You Hungry?: Distills And Intensifies Twenty-First Century Parental Fears

Sristi Gayen by Sristi Gayen
in Reviews
0
Are You Hungry? - Short Film Review - Indie Shorts Mag

The comic aspect of Teemu Niukkanen’s comedy Are You Hungry? presides in the film’s maddening downward spiral into utter paranoia and breakdown of its main character, an overprotective mother. 

She (Pirjo Lonka) has her son’s best interests at heart, a bit too much of it especially since she began suspecting that he may be gay. It started as innocuous enough. Efforts to start a conversation, some anxious Googling, but the spiral quickens soon enough to turn into a full-scale breakdown. And through it all, the son remains entirely oblivious and unaware. 

Are You Hungry? - Short Film Review - Indie Shorts Mag

Niukkanen’s achievement with Are You Hungry? is laudable. For a film with its gritty colour palette, it’s humour is not lost. Niukkanen and editor Joona Louhivuori weave the subtext cleverly into the film; it’s never on the nose or too flat. What the characters do not state, editing makes plain. 

What drives the mother off the edge is not that her son might be gay but that he looks (and she believes) vulnerable to attack by older men. This translates to the litany of “Are you hungry?”, and her verbal cries that he’s far too thin. Lonka is wonderful in her portrayal. Her character’s coming apart is ugly, fascinating and impossible to look away from, and Lonka delivers with gusto. 
Sound design stacks up the tension smoothly. However, for a premise as “strange” as this, the score disappoints. It is run of the mill fast-paced thriller stuff. 

Are You Hungry? - Short Film Review - Indie Shorts Mag

Matvei German, who plays Tomi, the son, is not part of the dramatics and there’s almost no music in his scenes. The mother’s race to save him regularly cuts away to him: silent, deadpan, and mentally miles away from the plot’s reality. He has his own share of humorous moments though, and just as strange, if not more, as during the climactic moments, when he’s fixing up a man’s microwave oven. Cinematography smacks the audience with the subtext, and it is doubly entertaining because the mother’s concerns begin to feel almost justified. The tension in those milliseconds break with Tomi’s lines. German is nonchalant, delivering relief to the audience in monosyllabic lines with precise timing. 

Are You Hungry? is weird and wonderful, a beautifully put together film that delves into regular lives and their concomitant fears, to then take them apart into a distorted, irresistibly chaotic explosion. 

#ShortFilmReview: Are You Hungry?: Distills And Intensifies Twenty-First Century Parental Fears Share on X

Watch Are You Hungry? Short Film Trailer

Tags: PrivateReviewShort Film Reviews
Previous Post

Misfit M.: A Misfit By Virtue Of Having A Voice

Next Post

Cagnolino: Examining Violence Through The Reluctant Villains

Sristi Gayen

Sristi Gayen

Related Posts

Fervor - Short Film Review - Indie Shorts Mag
Reviews

Fervor: On Being Dazed With Hatred

5th July 2025
The Resonance - Short Film Review - Indie Shorts Mag
Reviews

The Resonance: On Falling Prey, and Our Final Moments As We Do

30th June 2025
Next Post
Cagnolino - Short Film Review - Indie Shorts Mag

Cagnolino: Examining Violence Through The Reluctant Villains

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


Sponsored

Featured Post

Announcing Short Of The Year Awards 2023

Announcing Short Of The Year Awards 2023

Latest Podcast

  • Recent Reviews

About Indie Shorts Mag

Indie Shorts Mag is a publishing agency that works within the ‘short film circuit’. We review short films, documentaries, music videos and web series, amongst others. We stand out amongst the short film review sites for being multi-diverse & global in our platform and reach.
Our team works tirelessly to help promote, publicize and market your short films that deserve the shout-out! Besides reviews, we host film festival news as it’s a known fact that the film festival buzz is unmissable and we ensure you aren’t left behind!
We aspire to form a niche for ourselves as the ‘short film magazine’ that remains the hub for filmmakers & their audience.

Popular Topics

  • Announcements
  • Articles
  • Crowdfunding
  • Editorial
  • Film Festival News
  • Film Festivals
  • India Edition
  • Interviews
  • Marketing
  • Marketing
  • News
  • Online Premiere
  • Post-Production
  • Pre-Production
  • Reviews
  • Short Film
  • Short Film Competition
  • Short Film News
  • Tutorials
  • Web Series

Indie Shorts Mag on Instagram

Follow Us On Instagram

  • #ShortFilmReview: Fervor: What will you do after you win?

Read our review and watch the short film. Link in bio.

#ShortFilm #Review #IndieFilmReview #FilmReview #SupportIndieFilm
  • #ShortFilmTrailer: Mendo’s Carousel: Growing Past Old Patterns in Drama on the Complicated Nature of Grief. 

Read our review & watch the short, link in bio.

#ShortFilm #ShortFilmReview #SupportindieFilm #Trailer #FilmTrailer #ShortFilms
  • #ShortFilmReview: The Resonance: The night to discover pits, the dawn to sink into them.

Read our review. Link in bio.

#ShortFilm #Review #IndieFilmReview #FilmReview #SupportIndieFilm
  • #ShortFilmTrailer: She Follows: A Haunting For His Own Good. 

Read our review & watch the short, link in bio.

#ShortFilm #ShortFilmReview #SupportindieFilm #Trailer #FilmTrailer #ShortFilms #HorrorShortFilm
  • #ShortFilmReview: Bzrk: Curses sometimes double as blessings.

Read our review. Link in bio.

#ShortFilm #Review #IndieFilmReview #FilmReview #SupportIndieFilm
  • #ShortFilmReview: Garbage Rex: A vigilante walks into Wonderland.

Read our review. Link in bio.

#ShortFilm #Review #IndieFilmReview #FilmReview #SupportIndieFilm
  • #ShortFilmReview: Whispers of Freedom: In search of life beyond the wall.

Read our review. Link in bio.

#ShortFilm #Review #IndieFilmReview #FilmReview #SupportIndieFilm
  • #ShortFilmReview: Mary: There’s always a catch.

Read our review. Link in bio.

#ShortFilm #Review #IndieFilmReview #FilmReview #SupportIndieFilm
  • #ShortFilmReview: Cycles: The ball of exploitation keeps rolling.

Read our review and watch the short film. Link in bio.

#ShortFilm #Review #IndieFilmReview #FilmReview #SupportIndieFilm
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Advertise With Us
  • Contact Us
  • Submit Article
  • Write for Us
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy

© 2015-2025 Indie Shorts Mag.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Interviews
  • News
    • Film Festival News
    • Short Film News
  • Reviews
    • Short Film
    • Documentary
    • Web Series
  • Hall of Fame
  • Short Film Festival – 2025
  • Tutorials
    • Pre-Production
    • Post-Production
  • Submit Short Film
    • Submit Short Film for Review
    • Submit Web Series for Review
    • Interview Submission Form

© 2015-2025 Indie Shorts Mag.