A young fencer invites a rival fencer to an after-hours dual not giving him all the information about her intentions and reasons.
Written and directed by Will Calvins, this short film is well written and well directed but just did not connect for this viewer. This is part of “it happens” in the house of Cinema Crazed. The film is really well made, the story is well written, well directed, well acted, and well everything else’d, but it just doesn’t connect. Maybe something is missing here or perhaps something was missed while watching, but it was hard to care about the two characters on the screen and the more the film advanced, the least they were cared about on this side of the screen. This doesn’t mean that the film isn’t good; it just means it was not meant for this viewer.
The cast here is composed of two very capable actors, Makenzie Pridgen as Jaime and Sean Mikesh as Taylor, who give good performances. The issue here is the disconnect for this viewer. So, while these two did good, solid work, the care for their characters could not be achieved, which is unfortunate. Their work shows decent ranges of emotions, mostly negatively tinged, which is not an issue in and of itself, for Jaime and more on the confused ranged for Taylor. There is something here in these performances that sells the film and works well for their characters as written.
The cinematography by Christian Kelly looks great here in 99% of the shots with one sequence that feels mis-framed and mis-lit. That scenes will be obvious to those with a specific love for well-balanced images and it will annoy while sticking in mind more than it should. The other sequences and scenes are well-balanced and well-shot, but this one, whether on purpose or not, sticks out and leaves a bad impression. The rest is supremely well done and shows attention to framing, image balance, and lighting. Perhaps this was on purpose, but being this late into the short run time, it feels like an imbalance of image that could have worked better early on to set a ton. The editing by Joey Fisher is quite good, and the score by Brandon Cericola works quite well here.
The film as a whole is very well made but likely not for all audiences. Not due to adult content, but due to being writing for someone who is not this viewer and thus not everyone. There is something missing here or maybe it’s how the characters are written, but the short format here was a thankful happenstance as it was difficult to get into and care about the only two characters on the screen. It’s a well made short film that just did not connect at all unfortunately.