Mind the Gap (2005)

Mind the Gap begins with an angry student crowd protesting in front of a building. A radio news bulletin tells us that these are students - attempting to gain access to a board meeting which they believe will decide future fee structure at the university. An immaculately dressed woman - on her way to the meeting - threads her way through the throng and enters the building foyer. She goes to take the stairs but is prevented from doing so: a cleaning lady blocks her path, with a sign that says - 'STAIRS CLOSED FOR CLEANING: PLEASE USE LIFT". After an agitated conversation with the cleaning lady, the woman resolves, against her wishes, to take the lift. A girl is inside when the lift arrives. The woman hesitates - naturally, considering the commotion outside - but composes herself and enters. After a several moments, the lift breaks down. The woman, who is claustrophobic, has a panic attack. The girl, surprisingly, manages to calm her, and the two begin to talk. The woman confesses her feelings of doubt about the current role she finds herself in, her guilt about her opposition to the students, and her regret for the sacrifices she has made in her life to achieve success in her career. The lift eventually starts and the two women, it would seem, come to greater understanding of each other. The woman leaves the lift and hurries to her meeting. The girl, meanwhile, takes the lift back down to the very floor at which the woman originally got on. She exits the lift, and as she approaches the cleaning lady, she removes the "STAIRS CLOSED FOR CLEANING" sign and hands the cleaning lady a fifty-dollar note. Through a series of flashbacks, we see that the entire episode - from the lift stopping, to the maintenance woman who answers the distress call from the intercom - was orchestrated by the girl, and as the woman enters her board meeting, the girl enters a room of students to listen to the meeting now being transmitted through a radio 'bug' she slipped into the woman's coat whilst comforting her. The girl is congratulated by her fellow students and joins the group. After some moments of reflection, her initial look of satisfaction turns to concern and sadness - she has duped a woman that, in other circumstances, she probably would admire.