'THE LOVERS': A Small but Satisfying Meal {Fantasia 2021: Short Film Review}

Fantasia International Film Festival - Avra Fox-Lerner’s The Lovers is a good example of how place and naturalism can bring weight to even the simplest of stories. The Lovers runs eight-minutes, has only a set-up and a punchline, but manages to pack the margins with moments of beauty. 

An example of this is within the first two minutes of the film. Andy (Annapurna Sriram) helps Hazel (Meryl Jones Williams) get ready for a date. Conceptually, much like the film, the scene is simple; one person helps the other. How the scene plays out though is quite different. 

It holds long on the interaction between the two people, allowing Sriram and Williams quiet body language to play off of one another. The relative silence of the scene is hypnotizing. As an audience, we are asked to engage with the tactile elements of the said and unsaid in that moment. 

There is not a lot of meat on The Lovers bones, but what is there is a short and satisfying meal.

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Author

​Stephen Tronicek is a director/screenwriter focused on psychological horror and comedy. He grew up and is based in St. Louis. Stephen discovered film at a young age and became a professional film critic in his junior year of high school. This eventually led him to write screenplays and make short films. His horror screenplay, "Pieces" was a quarter-finalist in the Launch Million Dollar Screenplay Competition. Focuses include character-driven stories, violence as an extension of the psyche and seeing how much emotionally resonant story material you can get away with if you stick to the theme.