The City That Never Sleeps

Read Time:5 Minute, 36 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Miss Freelance
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Genre: Drama, Short
Year Released: 2019
Runtime: 19m
Director(s): Matthew Kyle Levine
Writer(s): Matthew Kyle Levine
Cast: Maddy Murphy, Timothy J. Cox, Zach Abraham, Keith Boratko, Ivan Greene
Where to Watch: watch here: www.vimeo.com

RAVING REVIEW: MISS FREELANCE compresses a week of a woman’s life into nineteen minutes, yet the film’s impact extends well beyond that running time. Matthew Kyle Levine writes, directs, shoots, and edits with a prudence that never feels rushed. The story follows Carly, played by Maddy Murphy, as she moves through a series of meetings with men across New York City. The nature of these interactions isn’t a mystery—Levine isn’t coy about the transactional element—but the focus is on what each encounter reveals about Carly’s life.

The film’s structure is episodic, with each scene serving as an isolated incident of interaction. One client is considerate, another is awkward, and a third is coldly mechanical. Rather than building toward a single climactic moment, the film allows accumulation to do the work. By the end, you’ve absorbed Carly’s fatigue and the sense that whatever she’s looking for—a feeling, a connection, a confirmation of worth—it remains just out of reach.

Murphy’s performance is the key to why the film works as well as it does. There’s nothing mannered in her choices; she holds the focus not with chaos but with the smallest adjustments—a pause before speaking, an almost intangible stare. Even in silence, you feel the mental arithmetic of her character: what to give, what to withhold, and how to exit without losing the core of herself entirely.

Levine’s choice to shoot some moments in close-up is a risk that pays off. By stripping away the distractions of the surrounding environment, he forces the viewer into Carly’s personal space, making it impossible to retreat from her experience. It also means that small variations between clients—such as tone of voice, posture, and facial expressions—land with an amplified effect. When the film does allow a wider shot, often in transitional moments between meetings, it feels like a brief gasp of air before plunging back in.

The city itself is more implied. This isn’t a postcard version of New York; it’s a functional backdrop, glimpsed in doorways, lobbies, and windows, suggesting that Carly’s world exists in pockets rather than across grand vistas. This minimalism keeps the focus where it belongs, on the person navigating those spaces rather than the spaces themselves. The sparseness also plays into the sense of isolation—no matter how bustling the real city might be, Carly’s path feels insulated, almost sealed off.

Thematically, MISS FREELANCE resists moralizing. It doesn’t frame Carly’s choices as tragic inevitabilities or as liberating acts of agency. Instead, it occupies a middle ground where the line between empowerment and exploitation is drawn with every meeting. There are moments where Carly seems in control, setting the pace and tone; others where she recedes, letting the other person’s needs dictate the moment. That ambiguity gives the film much of its staying power—it invites conversation rather than closing it down with a neat conclusion.

Levine’s editing is clean but not rigid. Cuts often land just after a frame of stillness, allowing the viewer to feel the faintness of an interaction before moving on. The sound design supports this subtlety; ambient noise is low, but a faint texture always underlies the dialogue, enough to keep scenes grounded without breaking their reality. The absence of a heavy score is a wise choice—it would risk telling the audience what to feel in a film that benefits from viewers deciding that for themselves.

At nineteen minutes, the short makes a deliberate choice not to overexplain. Viewers expecting a full backstory for Carly or definitive answers about her motivations won’t find them. This is a character study, not a plot-driven piece, and that’s where its strength lies. The restraint means that every included moment has intent, from a shared laugh that feels momentarily genuine to a long look out a cab window that seems to weigh a decision never spoken aloud. As unfair as it may be, that’s my only real critique of the film. I was selfish and wanted more. I wanted to see what Carly’s day was like before and after, still observational, but again, that’s a selfishness and a positive.

While the film avoids grand gestures, an underlying melancholy gradually develops scene by scene. By the final minutes, you’ve seen enough to understand that Carly’s work is both a shield and a void. It keeps her in motion, but it doesn’t necessarily move her forward. The encounters give her moments of connection, but they are fleeting, and whatever she’s chasing is left undefined—perhaps even to herself.

MISS FREELANCE ultimately succeeds because it trusts its audience. Levine doesn’t force a message; he crafts a series of interactions that feel authentic enough for viewers to project their own thoughts onto them. That openness, combined with Murphy’s controlled yet vulnerable performance, makes the film resonate longer than many features. It’s a small work in terms of length, but not in its impact.

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