Alsa lives in a small seaside cottage with her boyfriend Gav and their baby as well as Alsa's quite attractive and under-sexed mother Ali. Having watched a documentary on the subject, Alsa knows that puffins mate for life and likes this thought but with the flirtatious nature of his boyfriend she wonders if this is the same for her or not.
A strange and not wholly successful film this one. It deals with a strange family dynamic and starts out very interesting with the focus being on Ali's attraction to Gav. This is well done but later it seems to become more about Alsa and her relationship with these two and I didn't think it gave me enough to work with for this to be engaging. So in the second half we have a fight and a sudden moment of self-harm, neither of these are that well resolved and the only thing I could surmise was that this short was just one of many moments of unspoken tension about the unspoken knowledge all three share. If this was the case then it didn't totally work for me because so much came out of nowhere (from the viewer's perspective if not those involved).
The history of three is not clear either and I wasn't sure if the tension was in Ali or if she had done something with Gav in the past that left lingering hurt in every interaction with Alsa. Henderson does well with the material as you would expect however I thought Graham did too good a job of holding something in so good that the audience never really understand what it is. Alexander is good looking but his character is weak and he is left using what god gave him but unable to do a lot more. Neil's direction is good but I desperately wanted her to do more with the characters than she did.
Overall then a good-looking short film that starts out interesting but asks too much of the viewer and gives little in the way of background to aid understanding of the characters.
A strange and not wholly successful film this one. It deals with a strange family dynamic and starts out very interesting with the focus being on Ali's attraction to Gav. This is well done but later it seems to become more about Alsa and her relationship with these two and I didn't think it gave me enough to work with for this to be engaging. So in the second half we have a fight and a sudden moment of self-harm, neither of these are that well resolved and the only thing I could surmise was that this short was just one of many moments of unspoken tension about the unspoken knowledge all three share. If this was the case then it didn't totally work for me because so much came out of nowhere (from the viewer's perspective if not those involved).
The history of three is not clear either and I wasn't sure if the tension was in Ali or if she had done something with Gav in the past that left lingering hurt in every interaction with Alsa. Henderson does well with the material as you would expect however I thought Graham did too good a job of holding something in so good that the audience never really understand what it is. Alexander is good looking but his character is weak and he is left using what god gave him but unable to do a lot more. Neil's direction is good but I desperately wanted her to do more with the characters than she did.
Overall then a good-looking short film that starts out interesting but asks too much of the viewer and gives little in the way of background to aid understanding of the characters.
