Mateo and his Companion Cube.
Please Hold is a 2020 short film (19 minutes) directed by KD Dávila.
It is set in what appears to be the near future, in a Los Angeles where drones are flying about everywhere performing routine tasks. Mateo Torres (Erick Lopez) is walking to work one day when, out of nowhere, a drone swoops out of the sky and informs him that he's arrested. Following the drone's instructions, he reports to a prison and walks into a cell, all without knowing why he's been arrested and without seeing one flesh-and-blood human being.
A video screen in Mateo's cell is his one contact with the outside world, and it's not a good contact, as phone calls out are horribly expensive. He never leaves the cell and never sees a person, as an automated AI public defender tells him that he is facing a sentence of 45-47 years and should plead guilty to get a sentence of 5-7 years...and still no one tells him what he is charged with.
Tropes:
- Artificial Intelligence: Mateo sees an ad for an AI lawyer that can supposedly represent him in a trial.
- Bittersweet Ending: After that terrifying ordeal, Mateo is freed. But as the messages on his phone remind him, he's lost his job, he's been evicted, and he is literally penniless. And of course he's still living in the same dystopian Los Angeles.
- Black Comedy: It's darkly comic throughout. The AI assistant that's trying to get Mateo to plead guilty says stuff like "Hey, have you had a chance to think about the plea deal? Do you need help?", in a manner that is directly copied from "Clippy" the irritating old Microsoft Office Assistant.
- Brick Joke: In jail, Mateo becomes a sort of Indentured Servant making hand-knitted items for a company called Handmade. On the way out, he is delivered a flier from Handmade offering employment and saying "We hire ex-cons."
- Companion Cube: Mateo winds up accepting an offer from some company called "Handmade" that markets handmade goods and obviously exploits desperate prisoners. He gets kits delivered and knits sweaters and other knickknacks. He knits himself a little doll that he starts talking to.
- Dissonant Serenity: Part of the black comedy is the inappropriately chipper mood of all the AI automation Mateo has to deal with as he is facing a long time in prison. This starts with when he first enters his cell and the screen comes to life with a corporate logo and a bright, chipper voice saying "Welcome to CorrectiCorp, reforming one life at a time."
- Dystopia: A world where drones can appear overhead and arrest you (and shock you with a taser if you don't comply). A world where you can be thrown in jail, tried, and sentenced to 45 years in prison without ever seeing a human face or even finding out what you've been charged for. Of course the joke is that most of what the film shows—corporate prisons, the use of prisoners for slave labor, an indifferent justice system, prohibitively expensive phone calls to the outside, draconian sentences—is what exists in real life. The only difference is the automation.
- Fade to White: The film ends with a fade to white as Mateo walks out of the building, which matches his escape from the sickly yellow lighting of the jail to the bright sunshine, but also underscores the Bittersweet Ending of him being jobless in dystopian LA.
- 555: Guillermo Lima's advertisement doubles down on this, using 555 for both the area code and the first three numbers, 555-555-LIMA. (The film is set in LA so the area code should be 213 or 323.)
- For Inconvenience, Press "1": The Movie, and used in a horrifying Black Comedy. Mateo is trapped in a hell where he has to deal with awful automated phone trees, except it's not to find out about a charge on his credit card bill or make a hotel reservation, it's the justice system and he's trying to find out why he's in jail. As he is screaming at the video phone to find out why he has been arrested, the AI on the other end says "I'm sorry, I didn't get that. Please try again."
- Ignored Vital News Reports: This nearly sends Mateo to prison. He is bent over his hands, knitting some bit of frippery for Homemade, and completely misses the pop-up from his mother announcing that ten grand for a lawyer has been transferred into his account. Later, when he's broken in spirit, he is pleading guilty at his virtual "hearing" at the behest of his AI public defender. The AI is saying "Are you sure?" when Mateo notices the speech bubble icon with a "1" that indicates he has a message. He withdraws his plea at the last second, gets his human lawyer, and gets out of jail.
- Kubrick Stare: Mateo shoots these at the Video Phone a couple of times, like when he's screaming that he didn't do anything and the AI answers "I'm sorry, I didn't get that."
- Noodle Incident: Just what was Mateo arrested for? He never does find out, even when on the verge of a guilty plea that would put him in jail for five years. He finally gets Lima the flesh-and-blood lawyer on the phone, only for Lima to take one look at the file, roll his eyes, and say "Not again!" Mateo is sprung soon after. It's implied that he was arrested due to a case of mistaken identity. (Word of God from the director confirms that the film was inspired by a Real Life case of a Latino man who was arrested in a case of mistaken identity, only for no one to believe him, not even his public defender.)
- Read the Fine Print: Mateo skips past the fine print while attempting to make a video call out to the LAPD. He's on hold so long that he falls asleep. He wakes up to discover that he was on the phone for 114 minutes, and he was charged $3 a minute, which emptied his bank account and left him with no money and thus no way to contact the outside. When Mateo says the video phone never mentioned the charge, it flashes up the Terms of Use with the $3/minute charge highlighted. Later, Mateo scrawls "Always read the fine print" on the walls of his cell.
- Ridiculously Long Phone Hold: So long that Mateo falls asleep, only to wake up and discover that he was on hold with the LAPD for 117 minutes, and, much worse, has tapped out his bank account by being on hold for so long. That means that now he can't contact anyone on the outside.
- Time-Passes Montage: A couple of montages of poor Mateo, alone in his cell, knitting things for the company Homemade as days on end pass.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: A world where drones are routinely used to deliver packages, and to perform other routine tasks, like arresting people.
- Video Phone: The only way Mateo can contact the outside. The use of a video phone mounted in the wall reinforces the vaguely futuristic and very creepy dystopian aesthetic.
