My Wrongs 8245 - 8249 & 117

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The correct title of this article is My Wrongs #8245 - 8249 & 117. The substitution or omission of a # sign is because of technical restrictions.
My Wrongs #8245 - 8249 & 117
Directed by Chris Morris
Produced by Mark Herbert
Written by Chris Morris
Starring Paddy Considine
Music by Chris Morris, Adrian Sutton, Richard Hawley
Cinematography Danny Cohen
Editing by Billy Sneddon
Distributed by Warp Films
Release date(s) 14 November 2002
(premiere, London Film Festival)
24 February 2003
(DVD release)
Running time 12 min.
Language English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

My Wrongs #8245 - 8249 & 117 is the first film by Chris Morris, starring Paddy Considine as a mentally disturbed man taking care of a friend's Doberman Pinscher (named Rothko, and voiced by Morris) while she's away. The dog talks to him and convinces the nameless protagonist that he is on trial for everything he's done wrong in his life, and the dog is his lawyer. Unfortunately, the dog tends to make things worse for him, and the man's life falls further into disrepair.

This was the first film by Warp Films, an imprint of popular British record label Warp Records. It was released on DVD in 2003, on a region 0, PAL disc. The disc featured a false commentary track, among other bonuses. The packaging included a handwritten list of various wrongs committed by the protagonist, although one would have to destroy the case to read them all. The title comes from this tendency of the protagonist to record his sins: the film depicts numbers 8245-8249 in the timeline, and number 117, which was an unguarded comment made as a small boy, in a flashback.

In 2003, the film won a BAFTA for best short film.

The short film was based on a monologue from Chris Morris' earlier radio programme Blue Jam, and was attempted as a sketch in the television adaptation Jam. The sketch didn't work for undisclosed reasons in Jam, but very short clips were edited into the TV series (one appears at the end of episode 3, showing the man running after the dog, with the leash around his neck).