“Catalogue of Noses,” a 12-minute musical short, is a sharp and surprisingly devastating portrait of what happens when young girls internalize the idea that their natural face is a liability.
Directed by Josie Andrews and written by Lauren Schaffel, the film follows 16-year-old Emily — played by real-life teenager and high school senior Jemma Handler —as she visits a plastic surgeon’s office in hopes of landing a more “castable” nose. What plays out is a plunge into the conflicted mindset of considering cosmetic surgery. Emily’s internal monologue comes out in musical form, which could best be described as a hybrid of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” and “Fiddler on the Roof” if it took place in a surgeon’s office. “The film takes place in 2004 and is based on my own story of getting a nose job back then,” Schaffel told The Journal. “Pressures from the lead character’s mom who has had a nose job and her mom’s mom had a nose job. It’s this inherited pressure that Emily is enduring.
Schaffel and Andrews have only known each other for about a year. They met at an event at the Holocaust Museum LA, and they said that the connection was instant. “When Lauren told me the logline of the film, I was like, ‘oh my God, that’s my story too,’” Andrews told The Journal. “It was like Lauren was sent to me for a reason. The fact that we both had the same story was unbelievable. It made us wonder who else had this experience.”
Together, they turned their own teenage plastic surgery into a relatable on-screen situation centered around a teenager still figuring out who she is, yet navigating this enormous decision.
The musical numbers allow the film to embrace the absurdity of the premise, while also heightening the stakes. One of the film’s most unexpected moments is a fantasy dance sequence with anthropomorphic noses encircling Emily. The visual is silly but the laughter it provokes is complicated. “I’m laughing more at the absurdity of her situation,” Andrews said. “I want people to identify with her. It’s really more of a sad laughter.”
Schaffel originally wrote “Catalogue of Noses” as a play in 2022, with a hunch that it was meant to be a sitcom. She comes from the world of multicamera television, with early roles on “Still Standing” and “Will & Grace,” and more recent appearances on shows like “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
“I imagined a laugh track, but when I changed it and adapted it for the big screen, I realized I stripped away a lot of the vaudeville.” Emily’s mother, played by Lori Alan (“Family Guy,” “Toy Story 3”) and the doctor, played by Michael Kostroff (“The Wire,” “The Producers” national tour) are overbearing and dismissive of Emily’s reticence. There’s the classic conversation of Jews talking noses, yet there isn’t an overwhelming aura of Jewish guilt borscht-belt shtick. The film feels real and so much of it is in the vulnerability in Jemma’s lead performance.
The short was commissioned and developed as a play through JewFace and ShPIeL Performing Identity in the fall of 2024. It also received Commended status from the Jewish Plays Project last year.
The film is set within the context of Los Angeles’ grueling casting culture, as well as the pressure — often from within one’s own community — to assimilate to someone else’s standards. The “catalogue” in the film’s title is literal. Emily flips through a thick scrapbook of celebrity noses, all while an irreverent nurse rushes her to choose a design before the doctor arrives. And when the doctor does arrive, it’s infuriating to watch his smug gaslighting of his patient. He claims to have once worked with burn victims, but really found himself crafting noses that ”all networks want on primetime shows.”
Audiences seem to be connecting with it. Over the past year, the film has earned spots at the LA Shorts International Film Festival, the Big Apple Film Festival, the Santa Cruz Jewish Film Festival and the Atlanta Shorts Fest.
“The film is 12 minutes, but conversation after the film was about 45 minutes,” Schaffel said about the screening at the Santa Cruz Jewish Film Festival in February. “So many folks said a form of ‘oh yeah, I remember this when my sister had a nose job’ or ‘ I was pressured to have a nose job.’” At a screening of the film in May, an African-American male actor told Schaffel and Andrews that he related to Emily’s self-image conflict, with his own stories of being pressured to relax his hair and lightening his complexion when being considered for a role.
“People immediately wanting to tell their own stories I think is exciting, yet so personal,” Andrews said.
The filmmakers are now developing an educational curriculum with Reboot Studios to accompany the film. They hope to bring the film’s conundrums and lessons to middle school and high school age students. They see the film as a vessel for audiences to consider the motivations behind physically changing oneself, and really circle around the stigmas people are taught to believe.
Both Schaffel and Andrews say that “Catalogue of Noses” is not anti-surgery. It’s anti-silence. “If getting the surgery is going to make you feel like a more confident and happy person, so be it, do it,” Schaffel said. “But that doesn’t change who you are at your core on the inside.” Andrews added that “the true problem is surgery doesn’t change your worldview, if you want to change one thing, you’re going to change another and then another, and you’re going to keep chasing it. Where do you draw the line?”
That idea — that chasing a final fix is an illusion — is part of what gives the film its emotional sting. The ending doesn’t offer a tidy resolution. It offers something harder.
That idea — that chasing a final fix is an illusion — is part of what gives the film its emotional sting. The ending doesn’t offer a tidy resolution. It offers something harder. “I want people to come away and say, ‘that’s f—d up,’” Schaffel said.
“Catalogue of Noses” will be screened at the LA Shorts International Film Festival on Sunday, July 20 at 7:15 p.m. at Regal L.A. Live (1000 W Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles) Tickets are available through LA Shorts at lashortsfest.com/events/sunday-july-20-7-15-pm-program-28
