The short film centers around a deeply lonely, somewhat delusional young woman with a recently deceased mother and a newly broken leg with no one to take care of her — the textbook target for one of those predatory love scammer creeps. And that’s precisely the trap we lay out. As Sally falls head-over-heels with Richard via telephone, and as Richard fails to meet her in person before requesting money for his dying mom, we worry that she is in for a world of pain and bankruptcy. But by the end, we realize that Sally’s mom isn’t dead after all and perhaps she is savvier then we gave her credit for — she never actually mailed any of those checks. With online dating, anyone can pretend to be anyone — the relationship takes on a dimension of projection and conjecture. In the absence of a physical person, you can fill in the blanks with your own fantasies and desires, and, at a safe distance, you can decide how to present yourself. We all know this can be exploited for terrible things. But then again … who doesn’t enjoy the rush of trying on another life for size? Ultimately, we set out to subvert the damsel-in-distress narrative and give our lead Sally agency over her situation.. We wanted to ask the question, whose scamming whom? Sally needed the emotional support, the phone sex, the companionship to lift her up in the wake of a month-long leg recovery. In the beginning, she can’t even get off the floor. In the end, she doesn’t just walk, she dances. We worked with fellow AFI alum, cinematographer Steven Breckon, to create a look evocative of 60s psychological thrillers, which also examine the rot beneath the veneer of classical romance. New York vendors Kodak, Panavision, and Metropolis Post generously helped us to find an affordable path to shoot on 35mm film. This greatly contributed to the films hazy, fever-dream aesthetic, rooted in the subjectivity of a bizarre, unreliable narrator taking way too many painkillers. Inspired by the short stories of Ottessa Moshfegh and Mary Gaitskil, with their grotesque sexual trysts and morally questionable female anti-heroes, Fuck Me, Richard is a cinematic exploration of the transactional nature of romantic relationships, and the thrill of a good scam.