History Film / Poison2023

* SplitScreen: The screen is halved as Woods narrates Dr. Ganderbai injecting Harry with the serum, with Woods' narration on the right and the camera cutting between the doctor and Harry on the left. The same technique is used when Ganderbai breaks out the chloroform.

''Poison'' is a 2023 ShortFilm (~17 minutes) by Creator/WesAnderson, adapting the Creator/RoaldDahl short story of the same name. It is one of four Dahl short story adaptations Anderson directed for Creator/{{Netflix}} that premiered in 2023. The story had previously been adapted as episodes of ''Series/AlfredHitchcockPresents'' and ''Series/TalesOfTheUnexpected''.

* ScarsAreForever: Timber mentions that the smell of chloroform uncomfortably reminds him of hospitals and wars. As he says this the screen {{split|screen}}s to show him in the past at a hospital, a recently-stitched-up scar running across his forehead. In the present, the scar is still there.
* SuckOutThePoison: The narrator prepares to cut Harry and suck out the venom if he's bitten.
* SplitScreen: The screen is halved as Woods narrates Dr. Ganderbai injecting Harry with the serum, with Woods' narration on the right and the camera cutting between the doctor and Harry on the left. The same technique is used when Ganderbai breaks out the chloroform.

* UngratefulBastard: It's ultimately revealed that there is no snake on Harry's stomach. Dr. Ganderbai, attempting to defuse the tension, jokes that maybe he dreamed it. Harry takes this as him calling him a liar, and begins hurling racist insults at the doctor. This is after Ganderbai has ventured out in the middle of the night in hys pyjamas and gone to great lengths to help save Harry's life, even if there was never any actual danger.

* AdaptationalAlternateEnding: Both short story and screen versions of the story end with Harry hurling racist insults at Ganderbai for daring to question whether there was a snake at all. In the original short story, Ganderbai takes it in stride, telling the (implicitly white[[note]]the ending notes tell the audience that the character was initially named for an RAF pilot, and Woods is portrayed as white in prior live-action adaptations[[/note]]) Timber that the chloroform has messed with Harry's head. In this version, Ganderbai is much colder, and tells the (now explicitly Indian) Timber that he cannot apologize for Harry's behavior. A sign saying "British jute" [[note]]jute quickly became a cash crop as the British became more involved in India[[/note]] is prominent in the background, reminding the audience of the power dynamics at play.

Somewhere in India, the narrator Timber Woods (Creator/DevPatel) comes across his friend Harry Pope (Creator/BenedictCumberbatch) lying still on his bed, claiming that a poisonous krait is lying on his stomach. Woods calls a local doctor, Dr. Ganderbai (Creator/BenKingsley) to help out.

* AdaptationalAlternateEnding: Both book and screen versions of the story end with Harry hurling racist insults at Ganderbai for daring to question whether there was a snake at all. In the original short story, Ganderbai takes it in stride, telling the (implicitly white[[note]]the ending notes tell the audience that the character was initially named for an RAF pilot, and Woods is portrayed as white in prior live-action adaptations[[/note]]) Timber that the chloroform has messed with Harry's head. In this version, Ganderbai is much colder, and tells the (now explicitly Indian) Timber that he cannot apologize for Harry's behavior.

* AdaptationalAlternateEnding: In the original short story, Ganderbai takes Harry's racist insults in stride, telling the (implicitly white[[note]]the ending notes tell the audience that the character was initially named for an RAF pilot, and Woods is portrayed as white in prior live-action adaptations[[/note]]) Timber that the chloroform has messed with Harry's head. In this version, Ganderbai is much colder, and tells the (now explicitly Indian) Timber that he cannot apologize for Harry's behavior.