Since they met in the fourth grade, Jeremy and Evelyn have been best friends – although for him it was always more than that as he believes her to be the love of his life. He decides to confess this to her in a letter, but is it too late to do so since there is a strong chance they will not see each other ever again as the world starts to lose its force of gravity.
I recently watched a newer short film called Explosions where the population of the world rise up into the sky; it was beautifully done technically and in terms of the atmosphere. Brink made me recall that film because it tries to do a similar thing but with more of an actual narrative than Explosions had. What we have is a romance yet to be fulfilled between two beautiful young people – and it is only being realized too late since the world as we know it is coming to an end and everyone is about to float off due to the gradual loss of gravity. If you do not think about it too much (everyone is going to suffocate as they drift away from earth) then there is a certain beauty in the two friends discovering something wonderful and not having the time for it to fade – okay it may fade a little as they die in front of one another, but the goal of the film is to keep your mind on the love part of this tragic love – not the tragic part.
The problem I had with it though, was that it works far too hard to keep me there. The use of music is heavy-handed, basically yelling at the viewer about how the film is supposed to make you feel. This sense of being forced into a lane rather than led into it put me off and ironically the very devices used to get me where the film wanted, actually pushed me away from it. The effects and visual design of the film is nice but again the overuse of 'look at how beautiful this is' slow motion just feels forced and clumsy when it should have been tragic and engaging.
I see what the film was trying to do and it is beautifully shot with the two beautiful leads, but unfortunately the whole thing is pushing the viewer so hard to feel a certain way and for the film to be a certain thing, that it fails to genuinely be that thing and ends up seeming like it is going to force the viewer no matter what it takes.
