They know everything about you. You willingly reveal your deepest and darkest secrets to them, but how much do you know about your doctor? The new psychological short film, Let Me Go (The Right Way) explores the concept of questioning the motives beyond the medical professionals that claim to want to help you.
Directed by Destry Allyn Spielberg (Steven Spielberg’s daughter), written and produced by Owen King (Stephen King’s son), and starring Hopper Penn (Sean Penn’s son). Let Me Go (The Right Way) follows the story of Aiden, a bank security guard who has become convinced that his life is being manipulated by an outside source.
This prompts Aiden to make an appointment with Dr. Kemp, a man who claims to specialize in all things weird. Initially, Dr. Kemp is a calming, supportive presence, whose insights into Aiden’s difficulties promise an encouragingly positive prognosis.
Over multiple sessions, however, the relationship between the doctor and his patient begins to take on new, ominous shades. As Aiden’s condition fails to improve – and, in fact, worsens – he begins to question kindly Dr. Kemp’s intentions.
Let Me Go (The Right Way) is designed to immediately cast doubt on Aiden, making the viewer question the reliability of the film’s primary protagonist.
He claims that someone has been altering his things, noting that he has observed subtle changes in his life, that range from his belt buckle being a different color, to his record now containing a parenthesis in the song title.
After listening to Aiden, Dr. Kemp prescribes him a once-a-day pill and a single beer to wash it down, a combination that he believes should help Aiden take the edge off.
Instead of proving effective, the pills only seem to exacerbate the problem, after Aiden returns for his next session. This time reporting that he received a warning about taking the pills from a mysterious woman on his bus.
Not wanting to discredit Aiden’s encounter with this stranger, Dr. Kemp advises Aiden to stop taking the pills. After all, the pills were prescribed to help Aiden, but if he believes the pills are harming him, then they will only serve to worsen his condition.
It’s here in Let Me Go (The Right Way) when the audience first begins to question if there might be some validity to Aiden’s delusions. Where his first claims seemed so small and insignificant, the idea of someone giving him an ominous warning about continuing to take his medication, makes you start to wonder if someone is interfering with his life.
It’s during his third visit that the viewer is thrown for so many unexpected twists that it will have you second-guessing any opinions you might have had about Aiden, either positive or negative. For it’s during this third visit that Aiden appears to have lost whatever grip he had on reality.
He now claims that his co-workers have been referring to him by a different name and that he is convinced Dr. Kemp is the source behind all the unexplained events in his life. Even going so far as to make allegations that the good doctor has been sneaking into his home and messing with his things.
At first, this might seem like the ramblings of a madman, but what if Aiden’s ideas are not so crazy after all, again, how much do you know about your doctor?
Whatever we thought we knew about each character is completely shattered in the closing moments of the film, with so many questions left unanswered as to who all the players really are and their true motives.
Is Dr. Kemp really who he claims to be, or has he been playing Aiden this whole time? Making him the unwilling participant in one of his twisted experiments?
Or is it Aiden who has been manipulating the doctor, luring him into a trap?
Let Me Go (The Right Way) will have you guessing everything until the last seconds of the movie and even beyond the credits. It is a psychological film that only gives you fragments of the picture, leaving its viewer to try to put this puzzle together, only to realize that they don’t have all the pieces.
Check out Let Me Go (The Right Way) streaming on YouTube for free and see if you can solve this elaborate mind game, or will you too find yourself a patient of the good doctor when it’s over?
Let Me Go (The Right Way) is directed by Destry Allyn Spielberg, written by Owen King, who also served as one of the film’s producers, along with Oliver Brooks, Gilana Lobel, Josh Kesselman, and Michael Pitt, and was executive produced by Diane Krausz.
