I will start off saying, that for such a short film it definitely left you with wanting more. For only about 15 minutes in length, it didn't give much time for character development. For what little time there was, a lot of the film was left to the imagination. A fill in the blank kind of experience. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing here, as it is a short film. But there are so many unanswered questions.
It appears that young Mary is struggling spiritually and wrestling with inner demons of her own. "Narrow is the gate".
Marys overbearing-controlling Mother isn't helping the situation any. Although, we only see a couple of brief moments of interaction, we see enough to lead us to that conclusion and know she is part of the problem. This needs to be developed further.
Who is Beatrice? Where did she really come from? What are her true intentions, if any? Could Beatrice really be an alter personality of Mary? Definitely endless possibilities here.
The Father Gary character was an odd one. I was left wondering, was this actually how the Gary character was intended or was this Marys twisted view of Gary in her own head that we are seeing? I'm leaning towards her own disturbed delusions of Gary.
Which brings us to the big question. Did she actually commit murder or not?
There is a lot of potential here to build on and turn this short movie into a full length feature film. I would be very interested in viewing the full feature and getting more insight into all the characters and a deeper storyline. Some really good ingredients here, just need to complete the recipe full circle!
Hopefully one day we will get to find out if Mary actually crossed Through The Wide Gate.
