I think this filmmaker has a future.

Cashback aspires to be equal parts Volkswagen ad and Nicholson Baker's The Fermata, yet compares unfavorably to both. full review

Cashback is light, smart, and enjoyable, and it makes me eager to see what Ellis has planned for his next outing. full review

Imagine Kevin Smith with a background in poetry and painting instead of comic books and bestiality jokes, and you'll have an idea of what to expect from an exciting new filmmaker named Sean Ellis, whose terrific debut is called Cashback. full review

It's no small trick to blend fantasy, slapstick and genuine emotion, but [director] Ellis pulls it off with whimsy to spare. full review

Beware films with protagonists depicted as vastly more sensitive than their fellow characters. The result may be a crock like Cashback. full review

[Director] Ellis has rounded up all the actors for this feature adaptation but doesn't add much to the 18-minute original besides a tedious boy-meets-girl. full review

The movie is lightweight, as it should be. It doesn't get all supercharged. Ben and Sharon, despite setbacks, are delighted to be admired by such wonderful partners, and we are happy for them. full review

A flair for language both cinematic and verbal elevates an ordinary coming-of-age comedy of little substance.

A very romantic portrait of a young artist as he ponders love, beauty and living in the moment. full review

A sleek little meditation on beauty, desire, love and time. Now and then, it's fairly sophisticated stuff. full review

It's awkwardly drawn out to feature length with not-truly-comic secondary characters on the supermarket team, and go-nowhere incidents like a soccer match with a rival store and an unresolved encounter with another time-stopper.

Cashback springs from that childhood fantasy of being able to stop time and wander freely among the temporarily frozen. If only writer-director Sean Ellis had done more than use the conceit for a functional romance. full review

How ironic that Richard Lester had to go all the way to England to make that chef-d'oeuvre of sex comedies, The Knack... and How to Get It, while Ellis stays home and churns out the British answer to American Pie. full review

Wong Kar-wai on aisle 4 and Michel Gondry on aisle 6, with Kevin Smith as mop jockey at all points in between -- such is the lost-in-the-supermarket milieu of writer-director Sean Ellis's whimsical comedy. full review

The feature version of a 2004 award-winning British short depicts a sensitive art student who manages to freeze time, allowing him to undress women at his Sainsbury's supermarket and sketch them nude.

Slickly charming, genteelly erotic and directed with supreme polish. full review