I like that you said that you were expecting a twist in the plot because all of the films we’ve watched have had that, because that’s totally what I was expecting too. The beginning was so cute that I was immediately suspicious of something going wrong.
The Crush
I really didn’t expect this film to end like it did, maybe because in most short films we’ve watched so far things always seem to take a turn for the worst, but surprisingly everything ended how you’d expect from the beginning. The strongest part of the film was getting there.At first, this really seemed like something I’d see on the Hallmark channel— a cutesy little kid who has a crush on his engaged second grade teacher. (And yea, her boyfriend’s a tool.) I half expected the kid to go home to either a loving, but overworked, single mom or a workaholic father.
Once he learns of her engagement, however, we see the little tyke watching his dad place “his” gun in the cabinet, and then we definitely know something’s about to go down. This isn’t the Hallmark channel anymore.
Later still, the camera cuts to a shot of a poster portraying a lone gunslinger hanging in our hero’s bedroom. Naturally, our kid challenges his teacher’s mullet-clad fiance to a duel we think he ought to be taking a little more seriously.
Honestly, I thought he shot him. I like that he didn’t— I didn’t expect it at all, I thought the dude was toast. It could have ended with the gunshot. Bam. Don’t patronize a children’s feelings. The end. Roll credits. I still would have liked it too. I’m glad it didn’t go that route though. I didn’t predict it with the multiple shots of the gun and the camera filter set to cold and sad. All and all a good, happy film that works.
