I found Chris Nolan’s short film to be hugely interesting. Compared to something else we’ve watched, like Wes Anderson’s Bottle Rocket, this film is far from conventional, and much more conceptual and concerned with tone and atmosphere. Seeing this approach executed so well really demonstrated for me how little plot can matter when there is a strong idea or theme keeping the piece together. Something that also stood out was how much Doodlebug was able to achieve in under three minutes. This speaks to the simplicity of the the central idea on one level, but also its deceptive depth and density.
Some of the themes that contribute to this density include mental instability and obsession, which are very visual in their representation. This idea of obsessive, or at least highly ambitious, men is extremely common throughout all of Nolan’s films, most notably maybe in Memento, where a man who suffers memory loss dedicates his entire life to finding his wife’s killer (dead wives as motivation are also common in his films). This is not the only similarity between Doodlebug and Memento, as aspects such as the noir-like style carry over. Furthermore, much of Memento also features the paranoid protagonist, Lenny, holed up in a small hotel room – and these particular scenes also happen to be shot in black and white. Seeing some of Nolan’s best traits translate so well between short and feature films is very intriguing and telling of just how wholesome a short film can be in its own right.