An amazing short film that will make many in an audience feel like they were guests of an intimate full length film. So damn good that I can’t help but imagine, perhaps, that Director Lee might have in the works if not in the mind a full feature film. Many filmmakers make short films to help them to eventually make a full length film. However, there are filmmakers who make short films with no such plans.
THEM THAT’S NOT is not a film that announces itself with spectacle or narrative urgency. It does something far more unsettling — and arguably more enduring. It observes. It lingers. It withholds. And in doing so, it constructs a quiet but unrelenting meditation on the people society designates as peripheral, disposable, or simply “not.”
the WORD Editor Gregg W. Morris
Director Lee’s film operates within the tradition of social realism but resists many of its conventions. There is no singular protagonist to anchor the audience, no clear narrative arc that builds toward catharsis. Instead, the film unfolds as a mosaic of lives — intersecting, overlapping, and occasionally colliding — each shaped by structural forces that are felt more than explicitly explained. The result is a viewing experience that demands attention rather than offering comfort.
At the most basic level, THEM THAT’S NOT follows a series of characters navigating precarious circumstances—economic instability, bureaucratic indifference, and social invisibility. These are individuals who exist within systems but are not meaningfully served by them. Lee does not frame them as victims in a conventional sense; rather, he presents them as people negotiating survival within constraints that are both visible and insidiously normalized.
The film’s narrative structure is deliberately fragmented. Scenes begin late and end early. Conversations trail off. Moments of potential confrontation dissipate rather than escalate. This is not narrative inefficiency—it is design. Lee appears less interested in storytelling as progression than in storytelling as accumulation. Each vignette adds weight, texture, and emotional residue, gradually revealing a broader ecosystem of exclusion.
Visually, the film reinforces this ethos. The cinematography leans heavily on handheld work and restrained compositions, often placing characters in tight frames that emphasize both intimacy and confinement. Natural lighting dominates—dim interiors, washed-out daylight, the kind of visual palette that suggests not aesthetic stylization but lived-in reality. There is a noticeable absence of visual flourish. Instead, the camera observes with a kind of ethical restraint, refusing to beautify or sensationalize.
Performance-wise, THEM THAT’S NOT leans into naturalism. The actors — many of whom deliver understated, almost anti-performative work — avoid the emotional signaling common in more conventional dramas. Dialogue often overlaps or feels partially improvised, contributing to a sense that the audience is witnessing rather than being told. It is a risky approach, particularly for viewers accustomed to clearer emotional cues, but it aligns with the film’s broader commitment to authenticity.
Thematically, the film is anchored by a central question: who gets to be seen? The title itself functions as both descriptor and indictment. “Them that’s not” suggests a category imposed from the outside—a linguistic shorthand for exclusion that is both casual and deeply consequential. Throughout the film, characters encounter institutions that reduce them to paperwork, categories, or problems to be managed. Identity becomes something assigned rather than asserted.
This dynamic is most evident in the film’s depiction of bureaucratic systems. Offices, waiting rooms, and administrative interactions recur throughout the narrative, often filmed with a kind of clinical detachment. These spaces are not overtly hostile, but they are profoundly indifferent. Urgency on the part of the characters meets procedural delay, and human complexity is flattened into forms and eligibility criteria. Lee does not dramatize these encounters; he presents them with a quiet insistence that allows their cumulative impact to register.
Yet the film resists reducing its characters to symbols of systemic failure. There are moments—brief but significant—of humor, connection, and even tenderness. These instances do not resolve the film’s tensions, but they complicate them. Survival, the film suggests, is not solely about endurance; it is also about the small, often private acts that affirm one’s existence in the face of erasure.
THEM THAT’S NOT is unapologetically deliberate in its pacing and ambiguity. Viewers expecting narrative propulsion or emotional payoff may find themselves frustrated. The absence of a clear resolution — narrative or thematic — can feel less like an invitation to reflect and more like a withholding of closure. Whether this is a flaw or a feature will depend largely on the viewer’s expectations.
From a practical standpoint, the question for audiences is straightforward: is this a theatrical experience or a streaming one? The answer depends on what one seeks from cinema. In a theater setting, the film’s visual and sonic subtleties—its use of silence, its attention to spatial detail—have the space to fully register. The immersive environment amplifies the film’s cumulative effect. At home, where distractions are inevitable, some of that impact may dissipate.
That said, THEM THAT’S NOT is not a film that relies on scale. Its power is intimate, not expansive. For viewers inclined toward reflective, discussion-driven cinema, it will resonate regardless of format. For those seeking narrative clarity or entertainment value, it may be better approached with adjusted expectations — or postponed until a streaming release lowers the barrier to entry.
Ultimately, Mekhai Lee has crafted a film that prioritizes witnessing over storytelling in the conventional sense. THEM THAT’S NOT does not attempt to resolve the conditions it depicts, nor does it offer easy moral conclusions. Instead, it asks viewers to sit with discomfort, to recognize the structures that shape visibility and invisibility, and to consider the human cost of being categorized as “not.”
It is a film that will not satisfy everyone — and it is not trying to. But for those willing to engage on its terms, it offers something increasingly rare: a cinematic experience that values observation over explanation, presence over plot, and questions over answers.
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