alexjames96
- Jan 26, 2022
- 2 min read

One Day Afternoon Short Film Review

★★

This film depicts the life of a young boy through various conversations over the phone. With each interaction he has with others, the audience discover that he has alternative sides to his character. Through these small conversations there was always a strong, emotional response to each person, which highlighted the young boy’s changing personality. One Day Afternoon was an extremely short film with a very restricted budget, which made it interesting to see how the director worked around these limitations to be able to tell a story.

One Day Afternoon had some beautiful shots scattered throughout. Wide shots were used to accentuate the vast blue sky and the soft, foamy clouds delicately placed over the top of this magnificent backdrop. The young boy looked like he was on top of his building, oblivious to the scenery around him as he makes a phone call. Whilst the audience listen in on his conversations, this breath-taking scenery becomes the centrepiece that draws our focus in. There were some shots when taken from inside the home which did not match up when compared to the stunning views which we are first introduced to. These cuts could be considered clunky and out of place and in some ways, unnecessary to the short film. It may have been a wiser move to prolong the wide shots on the roof and capture the sky at different elements of the day, to show the moving of time as well as produce a serene setting.

It was fascinating to see how the director wanted to convey the character. It was clear that through the variety of phone calls, the young boy had a different reaction to each person whether this be family, partners, work or enemies. From what I can interpret, the director wanted to suggest that we as humans adjust our personalities depending on what kind of circumstances we are facing. Within this short film, the characters personality adjustment, suggests to the audience that this can happen every moment of the day. We are persuaded to adapt slightly to people whose personality differs from our own, which is a basic element to becoming an adult. A gentler tone is often adopted when we are met with a quieter more reserved person and a more aggressive and forceful manner is needed to reach out to those who come across brutish. Many of us may not change our personality entirely, but there are many occasions in our everyday lives which cause us to tweak our mannerisms.

I could see that this is a message that the director was heading towards, however, it was very unclear at times, and it was difficult to understand the point of the short film at face value. A lot of critical thinking and interpretation was necessary to discover the hidden meanings from this short. It would have been useful to have some form of a backstory to the character and the conversations he was having, this was not clear for a large majority of the film. In order to boost this rating slightly, further details were needed to help the audience connect with the character far better.