Written and directed by Chad Hamilton, starring Jon Noto, Falon Joslyn, Steve Zettler, Mike Yak & Allia Abouelenein. A husband takes his sick wife to a park to cheer her up. 

Using the medium of short film to tackle an issue as difficult as illness and death is not an easy choice to make; you are immediately increasing the level of delicacy and depth that the film will require to achieve its goal. In that respect, although it’s clear that the film was made in a genuine effort to be hopeful and heartwarming, the way in which the subject is approached almost comes across as flippant. The visuals feel too clean cut to reflect the gravity of the situation, while you can understand the want to keep things slightly lighter, regardless it’s still a subject that requires a certain amount of weight to it; to help its audience sympathise and take the situation that you’re being presented with seriously.

As the plot makes its major change, the move is slightly too quick and without a smooth transition or change in visual to help ease the progression of the story; while others may use a different hue or lens or score to present the shift to the audience, that doesn’t appear here. You know in the literal sense that the film has moved into a different arena but it lacks the style to pull it off convincingly. Added with the choice to not include dialogue, the cliché of a mime and a moment that can either be considered a large continuity error or poor scripting, it adds up to a film that asked too much of itself and set its target too high and simply fell short.

While there’s clear production value and you can overtly see what the filmmakers were aiming for with this short film, there’s no time to sympathise with the characters or invest in their story. Perhaps with alternative editing, the films message could have come across more effectively and embodied the simple sweetness it had the potential for.

Verdict: 4/10

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