Calico

Vitiligo is a rare skin condition which affects around 1% of the population. It is categorised by the breaking down of pigmentation within the skin, resulting in the appearance of pale patches which can be located anywhere on the body. Vitiligo can hit at any time, with no concrete results on who or why anybody might begin to suffer from the condition. In half of all cases the onset of vitiligo will come in childhood or adolescence, adding to an already difficult time in teenagers lives when their bodies are going through major changes, with the sense of losing one’s identity being magnified for those with non-white heritage.

Prominent celebrities who have lived with vitiligo include the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, rising ballet star Michaela DePrince (who sadly lost her life recently), and model Winnie Harlow, however, the exposure of vitiligo on screen is still very minimal and can be felt by those with the condition to be fetishistic when included in clothing and beauty campaigns. Certainly, the writers and producers of Calico, Sarah and Jake Mavity, would like to see more in-depth and discursive projects surrounding vitiligo, and so came up with their own fifteen-minute short film to highlight the issue.

Calico follows high-school student Lorrie (Newland), who has been missing lessons, diving out of classrooms and avoiding PE altogether. It doesn’t help that swimming lessons are on the cards and the other girls seem confident enough in their bodies to walk around in their swimsuits. Things have gotten so bad for Lorrie that her grades have started to suffer and this has caught the attention of headteacher Miss Hammond (Preston). So, along with PE teacher Mr Berk (Nicholls), Miss Hammond sets about staging an intervention to get Lorrie back on track, it’s just that it comes with a lot of condescending remarks, easily apportioned blame and plenty of Gen X musings on the state of the modern generation.

Once Lorrie has taken her telling and been left alone to think about her future, she is surprised to find that the goldfish in the tank on Miss Hammond's desk can talk. Voiced by Jamali Maddix, the goldfish identifies with Lorrie’s plight and serves as a metaphor for finding your place in the world. Constrained by a tank which is too small for him, and which keeps him at a size which is nowhere near his potential, the goldfish asks for Lorrie’s help to find somewhere more spacious to live and grow. So, Lorrie scoops him up, makes her way to the girls’ toilets and learns a little bit about goldfish, just in time before wrongly flushing him down the pan.

With crisis averted, Lorrie also learns that the goldfish she is helping is a Calico, meaning that it’s not entirely gold, but with flecks and flashes of black and silver across its scales. This helps Lorrie understand a little more and feel better about herself as she continues to help her finned friend get to the local lake.

Throughout Calico, there are plenty of nice little asides and interludes from the supporting characters to help flesh out the story and the scenario. Some of the major diversions come in the form of animations, which seamlessly blend in with the live action to offer insights into just how Lorrie is feeling. There are plenty of gags going on in the background and secondary dialogue, and everything feels as though it has been thought about thoroughly to make sure that Lorrie’s story feels rounded out and complete. With that, director Jake Mavity chooses his shots well and DoP Murren Tullet keeps everything looking great, maintaining a clear balance between the indoor, outdoor and swimming pool shots.

However, the real star of the show is Malaysia Newland as Lorrie. With a casting process that took around four years, it’s obvious that Sarah and Jake Mavity were waiting for exactly the right person to bring their life experience to the role. Newland is perfect, and shows a vulnerability which couldn’t be faked. She steps up to the mark in terms of Lorrie’s low times, but also shows extreme resilience in the spaces where Lorrie can be proud of herself, expressing a genuine emotion which passes easily to the audience.

Calico is a great example of how to introduce a mostly unseen issue, with deep running themes, to a new audience. It takes pains to show the real-life difficulties faced by those living with vitiligo, but remembers to also keep things fun and interesting for the viewer. It is great to see someone coming to terms with who they are, even if that’s different from who they thought they were going to be, and having a positive message of loving yourself come through from the narrative. It could have been so easy for the Mavitys to focus on the negatives, but they have instead created something which speaks to all of us about how we love ourselves and others.