Nearly a month after taking home a Solzy Award for The Other Morgan, filmmaker Alison Rich premieres Training Wheels at Sundance.

Her sophomore short is a 15-minute comedy about a socially inept woman, Enid Yarmis (Alison Rich), renting a man, Ricky Mountain (George Basil), in order to prepare for another man, John. Hence, the film’s title! But anyway, that’s the gist of the film in a nutshell. Even though the website allows for discreet dating, Enid is even more discreet by only wanting to pay in cash. Enid rents Ricky for the 48-hour period before going on a first-date with John. Basically, we get a crash course in relationships although the fake fight turns into a real fight between the two of them. I couldn’t stop laughing when the film reached this point. It turns out that Ricky has some vulnerability issues of his own and he opens up to Enid about them.

If you’re familiar with her first short film, prepare for even more laughs in Training Wheels. The idea of using someone to practice on before the real thing isn’t a new concept. However, I love the way that Alison Rich approaches things in the film. Even though the cast is minimal, you almost forget that Training Wheels was shot during the pandemic–just before the Delta surge to be exact.

With two short films to date, Alison Rich is showing herself to be quite the talent behind the camera. Both concepts of her first two films work quite well as shorts but I would certainly love to see what she can do with a feature film. It’s only a matter of time before Rich stars tearing it up as a feature filmmaker. I certainly can’t wait to see what she writes and directs next.

DIRECTOR/SCREENWRITER: Alison Rich
CAST: Alison Rich, George Basil, Jack Cutmore-Scott, Zeke Nicholson, Kathy Yamamoto

Training Wheels holds its world premiere during the 2022 Sundance Film Festival in the Short Films program.

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