The Date ★★★☆☆

Review of 'The Date' which can be found here or on the official website here.

Length: 03:47

Written & directed by David Cooper

Genre: Comedy

Date: 2011

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Logline: A guy prepares for his big Valentines date but it increasingly looks like his efforts may have been wasted.

This is just a bit of harmless fun, but overall, it's not terribly original and is average at best. Being a one trick pony, it's mostly all setup with a pretty expected payoff at the end. Carl Thornley plays the diligent date who cooks, cleans and tries to create a romantic atmosphere in the badly lighten living room turned dining room. Thornley comes across well and with no dialogue, he still manages to create a likeable character. Action is well choreographed to the music by Robert Wells indicating that the music was an early integral part of the concept. There are several good changes in tempo within the audio track and this is reflected on screen and is a good way of directing audience emotion.

There is a good pace and rhythm to the shot sequence too with nice variation in location changes, shot speed, static camera and panning shots. The edit is also satisfactory although the layered ticking clock sequence is a bit naff and distracting. The stark whiteness of the set design and possibly on location lighting gives a bleached out look which saps any colour vibrancy out of the shots. This was one of the major low points and although camera quality is good, the overall look of the film suffers due to this.

With a cheeky tone to it, all of my misgivings are quite forgivable and this is no more than it is described by the uploader - "a simple but fun short film". Would like to see what they come up with next.

Best Bit: The cheesy but effective music.

Worst Bit: It's just so-so.

Final thought: No dessert! That's a deal-breaker.

Read a condensed review of this film on Twitter here.