Wildly uneven film never really generates much heat. While the cast is game the script never manages to work. Part of the problem is that the script has way too many characters. There are so many characters floating around that too much of the film involves either Drez Ryan or Chynna Walker talking to people of the than each other. This is supposed to be a film about their marriage but we don’t have enough sequences where they actually talk to each other. To me the best sequence is the pre-wedding one where Ryan and Walker talk to each other through a window. It’s a stunning sequence where we sense the love between the couple- something that is missing in the fights and side discussions that fill the rest of the film.
Another huge problem with the script is that outside of the couple everyone seems totally alien to each other. The film lost me early when the friends and family gathered for the wedding didn’t seem to know each other at all. Ryan's groomsmen seem to belong in a different wedding. And Walker didn't seem to have any clue who her betrothed's mother was. Really? It seemed out of place Later sequences had the characters acting as mouth pieces for writer director Chris Hansen who doesn’t seem to want to have small moments in a life but rather have key discussions. Hansen wants to show us the ups and downs and insists on kind of manipulating things to get to the point he wants to make.
And yet Ryan and Walker are game. There is a spark between them that makes me wish they had a better script to work with.
A miss.
SEVEN SHORT FILMS... plays Cinequest again March 9 and 11. For more information and tickets go here
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