By Valerie Milano
Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 6/18/25 – In just nine minutes, UNFAITHFUL! delivers a punchy, eerie, and darkly satirical meditation on the voyeurism of early 2000s reality TV culture—wrapped inside a psychological power play that escalates with chilling subtlety.
Directed and co-written by Seri DeYoung, the film is a product of creative serendipity. As DeYoung explains, “Jack’s a longtime friend, and I reached out wanting to collaborate on something—he to act, me to direct.” That creative spark ignited after a late-night encounter with an old episode of Cheaters. “I couldn’t stop thinking about that ‘wild west’ era of television,” she recalled. The result is a short film that resurrects the over-the-top spectacle of early-aughts daytime drama and reimagines it through a disturbing psychological lens.
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At the center of the chaos is Mark, a reality show host portrayed by Jack D. Fleischer with performative charm and barely contained obsession. He invites a guest—played with quiet vulnerability by Ronald Auguste—onto his show under the guise of exposing infidelity. But what begins as moral theater quickly spirals into something far more personal and unsettling. “Mark tries to balance that code of ethics: he’s an ordinary person doing a job that trades in people’s secrets,” Fleischer explained. “I want viewers to wrestle with that gray area, rather than seeing everything as simply black or white.“
The film’s title, UNFAITHFUL! is more than a tabloid headline—it’s a challenge to the audience. Who’s betraying whom? What is justice when it’s filtered through a television lens? As the story unfolds, the lines between host and guest, justice and exploitation, begin to dissolve.
From a technical perspective, the film is an impressive feat of precision and collaboration. The climactic showdown scene—featuring nine performers, three cameras, and nearly 20 people in a single room—was “the most complex multi-camera setup I’ve ever done,” Fleischer shared. The production team went as far as sourcing original Panasonic tape cameras from 2007 to ensure visual authenticity. “Seri and our cinematographer, Morgan Glassman, meticulously researched the exact Panasonic tape cameras used in 2007… and pulled off authentic footage shot to tape.“
Even more impressive? The entire film was shot in one day. “We shot Unfaithful all in one day—my first time directing nine pages in a single day,” DeYoung said. To keep up the pace, longtime collaborator and editor Andrew Jordan cut scenes live on set. “By day’s end, we had a rough cut.“
Supporting performances, including a standout turn by Aimee McGuire, add depth to the film’s moral complexity. Her brief but impactful role reframes the ethical stakes of the story without spelling them out—a testament to the film’s layered storytelling.
The aesthetic choices—low-budget glitz, grainy footage, overbearing sound cues—perfectly echo the cultural moment being interrogated. Yet the film never leans solely on nostalgia. Instead, as DeYoung and Fleischer both made clear, it uses its familiar setting to provoke deeper questions about the line between entertainment and exploitation.
Ultimately, UNFAITHFUL! is more than just a slick genre exercise. It’s a sharp critique of a culture that once celebrated televised cruelty—and a timely reminder of how little we’ve evolved. As Fleischer put it, “Society condones sensationalizing others’ private lives for entertainment, yet balks when it hits too close to home.“
Directed by: Seri DeYoung
Producers: Jack D. Fleischer, Otha Cole, Seri DeYoung
Runtime: 9 minutes
West Coast Premiere: Dances With Films
See it at Dances With Films
Thursday, June 26, 2025
7:00 PM | Fusion Shorts Block 7
TCL Chinese Theatre, Hollywood, CA
Verdict: ★★★★☆ (4/5)
Smart, sharp, and disturbingly relevant, UNFAITHFUL! is a short film that wields its brevity like a weapon. For fans of psychological thrillers and media satire, this is one to catch on the big screen.
@unfaithful.on.tape | @seri_deyoung | @jackdfleischer
jackdfleischer.com
