If you look at the history of storytelling, you’ll notice that lying has always been the go-to plot device for reminding us why telling the truth is generally a good idea. Aesop’s The Boy Who Cried Wolf presented us with a kid who took pranking a little too far, Pinocchio warned us about the dangers of developing a built-in lie detector on your face and – lest we forget – Jim Carrey’s Liar Liar used the inability to deceive as a lesson in the true value of honesty.
Now, co-writer/directors Alex Kavutskiy (Squirrel) and Jerzy Rose are throwing their hats into the honesty ring with their modern-day parable The Bride’s Curse – a darkly comedic short film that proves that even in 2025, lying still makes great entertainment… just not great marriages.
Alex Karpovsky stars as a horny husband who finds himself in deeper trouble every time he lies to his wife.
The Bride’s Curse opens with a bedroom scene where a newlywed couple are about to ‘consummate the marriage’. As they bask in the warm glow of post-coital bliss, the bride nervously drops a bombshell: the women in her family have been living under a centuries-old curse that leaves them “forever doomed to marry liars.”
What follows is essentially an adults-only riff on Pinocchio – but instead of a boy whose nose exposes every fib, the film’s unfortunate husband endures a series of increasingly bizarre physical afflictions each time he deceives his wife. It all begins with the sudden sprouting of a horn from his forehead, and only gets stranger from there.
Tipper Newton stars opposite Karpovsky as the titular bride of the short
If that description of Kavutskiy and Rose’s film make it sound like strange viewing, then it’s down to the film’s lead performers – Alex Karpovsky and Tipper Newton – for grounding the story with surprising emotional weight. Newton, who seems to level up with every on-screen appearance (and is an accomplished director in her own right), delivers one of her most vulnerable performances to date. While Karpovsky draws on his extensive experience to navigate the film’s tonal tightrope, bringing nuance and complexity to a character who must reckon with both magical punishment and marital truth-telling.
The combination of their performances and the sharpness of Kavutskiy and Rose’s script makes The Bride’s Curse a deeply entertaining watch that feels both classical and very contemporary (I’m not sure Aesop ever made someone’s dick fall off?). It’s a modern tale with an age-old message and although it’s not a story you’ll be sharing with the kids, the film has a fairytale element that’s hard to ignore.
