God Of Love - Review

God of Love - Review

   "You can't control who you love, you can't control who loves you, you can't control how it happens or why it happens, you can't control any of this stuff". These are the first lines of the 2010 Academy Award winner for Best Live Action Short Film. I firstly saw it two months ago when I was supposed to write the screenplay of a short film me and some of my friends were organizing to a Inter-school festival (it wasn't even shot, so this doesn't matter anymore), but I didn't know how should I write, so I started watching some good short films. The thing is that I thought this film really interesting because was one of the only features that has this Allen-groovy-jazzy-campy style, so why not to make an intimate analyze of it now? (it's because I'm currently working on a post about Christopher Nolan filmography that will probably go out on Friday).

   God of Love is a 2010 short film written, directed and starredby the NYU Graduate student Luke Mattheny, and it's about the lounge singer Raymond Goodfellow who passed the whole year praying for god to the affection of his fellow bandmate, Kelly, who is in love with Raymond's best friend, Fozzy, but he actually doesn't give too much attention to her and often rejects her, principally due to Raymond's feeling on Kelly. One day he receives a box full of "love darts" and the rest is history, go watch yourself because it's much more unexpectable than it seems to be.

   As I said, this movie is campy (for those who don't know, campy means exaggerated, theatrical, like some Tarantino movies, but these ones I love), there are some shots that are just phony, and due to the whole atmosphere the black and white cinematography of a Red One camera and the eclectic score constructs over the short, they even look charming. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G, I usually don't get so excited with these things, actually I see these stuff and just think "Ugh, another of those Wes Anderson burlesquism?" (Great, I invented a new word. Also, I'm kidding, I love Anderson, I just get tired too soon of some who want to drink from the same source of him. People, don't try to copy what's perfect, you'll fail).
   Mattheny showed himself as great writer, I aspire to be a screenplayer (only on my free time), always taking inspiration from Allen, Sorkin and Linklater, and I noticed on this short film that Mattheny also likes writing this everyday dialogues, because they show how real the characters on scene are. I could visualize myself as Fozzy sometimes (the often grumpy sidekick who just wants the best for his friends, even if this means rejecting the love he receives), because this is cool, see that that person really exists, that they are multi-dimensional.
   Another virtue of the movie is the originality of the plot. I don't know if someone else could imagine a short film about a contemporary cupid who has to live with the frustation of an unrequited love. It's simple, but so much can developed from this, and Mattheny explores it from the best way possible.
   God of Love is funny, campy, stylish, remarkable, identifiable and unexpectable. What a great short film.