{"id":13568,"date":"2026-11-20T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-20T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailnewsgroup.com\/ohmr\/?p=13568"},"modified":"2026-11-15T12:36:45","modified_gmt":"2026-11-15T12:36:45","slug":"eight-ball-and-the-art-of-restraint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailnewsgroup.com\/ohmr\/eight-ball-and-the-art-of-restraint\/","title":{"rendered":"Eight Ball and the Art of Restraint"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>7 Minute, 25 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>

MICRO SERIES REVIEW
\nMagic 8<\/strong>
\n –  <\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n

Genre: <\/strong>Drama, Romance, LGBTQ+, Short
\nYear Released: <\/strong>2026
\nRuntime: <\/strong>5m
\nDirector: <\/strong>Robyn Faye
\nWriter: <\/strong>Robyn Faye
\nCast: <\/strong>Nicholas Marrast-Lewis, Felipe Chavez, Magnus Rook, AJ Prior, Harry Evans
\nWhere to Watch:<\/strong> shown at the 2026 Nottingham Film Festival<\/p>\n

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RAVING REVIEW: <\/strong><\/strong><\/strong>Solid has plenty to say about the man across the pool table. He says most of it to us. Nicholas Marrast-Lewis plays Solid in the room, and Magnus Rook plays the voice in his head. It’s an unusual division of labor for a romance, and it gives Robyn Faye’s MAGIC 8 its most interesting complication. Solid can tell us what he wants and still have no idea what to do about it. He’s got a willing audience in us and a much harder person to read in Stripe, who came over to play pool and has every reason to leave it at that.<\/p>\n

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Stripe, played by Felipe Chavez, first catches Solid’s eye from across a crowded sports bar. It’s 1974, and a game of eight-ball is an easy thing for two men to agree to in front of everybody. Starting with that look gives the scene some momentum before anybody picks up a cue. Crossing the room is already a choice, and both men get to make it. That matters once Solid starts talking us through his thoughts. Faye gives Stripe a say in how the meeting begins before we settle in with the man who’ll do most of the talking.<\/p>\n

Pool gives the encounter a good rhythm. There’s a lot of time between shots to look over the table, figure out what the other player has left you, and think about something else entirely. The game supplies those pauses without the two men having to fill them with conversation. Faye can stay with Solid’s thoughts for a while and come back to a piece of business that’s already in progress. Pool also gives the scene a natural endpoint. These two get the length of a game together, and every shot brings them a little closer to deciding what to do with the rest of the evening.<\/p>\n

Rook’s narration moves between Solid’s thoughts about the game, his interest in Stripe, and his awareness of what he’s risking. The pool commentary earns its place. There’s something funny about trying to take a game seriously when half your mind is on the person you’re playing against. It’s also recognizably how a crush works. You can genuinely care about what you’re doing and find yourself giving a ridiculous amount of attention to the person doing it with you. Keeping those thoughts together gives Solid something ordinary to be distracted from. It gives him a life in the room beyond standing there and worrying about what the room might do to him.<\/p>\n

The imbalance between the two men gives Chavez a particular job. Solid can think his way into or out of an interpretation of almost anything Stripe does, and Stripe gets to carry on playing pool. At some point, hearing more from Solid makes it harder to know how much to trust his reading of the encounter. He’s invested enough to see a possibility in this game. We have to decide how much of that possibility comes from the other man. It’s an effective use of a voiceover because it gives us access to something specific, the attention of a man with a crush, and lets that attention color what we make of the person he’s attracted to.<\/p>\n

One of the better decisions in the writing is to give the pair the familiarity of people who’ve done this before. A first meeting has its own nerves. The suggestion of other games makes this one feel like something they’ve had time to get good at, from playing pool to finding each other across the room. It changes what there is to lose. These men already have a way of seeing each other that works. Doing anything to change it means risking a part of their lives that seems to give them both some pleasure. The routine has value in its own right, especially when there’s every reason to keep it going.<\/p>\n

The bar helps explain why a routine like that can take hold. Faye puts Solid far enough off to the side that he can watch the room before he decides to cross it. The pool table gives the two men somewhere to go inside that same room, with an activity that makes it ordinary for them to stay there. A place can feel comfortable enough to become a regular stop and still have limits on the kind of comfort it offers. In 1974, England and Wales were only a few years removed from a reform that had partially decriminalized sex between men under narrow conditions. The space between a change in the law and feeling at ease in your local pub helps explain how much these two can want to be there.<\/p>\n

Faye shot the film herself on Super 8 with a camera first marketed in the year the story takes place. It’s a fitting choice for reasons that go beyond the period. The grain suits the haze and low light of the bar, and the small-gauge image has the intimacy of something a person might have shot for themselves. That quality gets a little uncomfortable here. The camera can record an evening that the people in it have good reason to let pass without a record. There’s a slight nosiness to filming these two at all, which gives the photography something to contribute beyond making the room feel like it belongs in the seventies.<\/p>\n

Calling the men Solid and Stripe is a more conspicuous choice. It’s about as subtle as naming two boxers Red and Blue. The game has already given these two an excuse to be in the same place and a way to spend a few minutes there. Asking it to do the naming too pushes a good idea a little further than it needs to go. The labels fit the small piece of these men’s lives that Faye has chosen to show, though. There’s something apt about spending this particular evening with two people and knowing them by the sides of the table they’ve taken.<\/p>\n

There’s also a limit to what the useful mechanics of a game can give a romance. It gives Solid and Stripe time together in increments, and at some point what happens between turns is more interesting than the game's progress itself. The conceit feels tidiest when the pool is doing the most work. The film feels looser and more appealing when Solid’s interest briefly gets the better of his concentration. He can put himself in a position to spend time with Stripe. From there, the things worth caring about are the ones he has a lot less control over.<\/p>\n

What gives MAGIC 8 its affection for these men is how little it asks them to prove before their time together counts for something. A short about the risks of being seen could get so caught up in those risks that the attraction starts to feel like another problem to solve. Solid gets to enjoy having someone to look forward to seeing. Stripe gets to show up and be good company without having his every thought accounted for. For the other people in that bar, it’s an ordinary night. For Solid, there’s somebody there worth coming back for.<\/p>\n

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MICRO SERIES REVIEW Magic 8  –      Genre: Drama, Romance, LGBTQ+, Short Year Released: 2026 Runtime: 5m Director: Robyn Faye Writer: Robyn Faye Cast: Nicholas Marrast-Lewis, Felipe Chavez, Magnus Rook, AJ Prior, Harry Evans Where to Watch: shown at the 2026 Nottingham Film Festival RAVING REVIEW: Solid has plenty to say about the man across the pool […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/mailnewsgroup.com\/img\/0368\/0368068.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t