As Easy as Closing Your Eyes

As Easy as Closing Your Eyes is so deeply heartbreaking that it’s almost difficult to think about. It tells a personal story, and yet it’s set, either in the future, or in some parallel world in which technology has advanced enough to provide consumers a drug with which you can bring back a dead loved one for a short time.

The film begins with what appears to be an AA meeting, but with further context, we come to realise it’s in fact a rehabilitation group for those addicted to this sci-fi drug. Here we’re introduced to our protagonist: a woman who has recently lost her son. There are some interesting parallels between this film and other classic movies. Arguably the main inspiration (or, at least, closest film in terms of content) is Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence. But Parker Croft’s short intelligently flips that concept in its head, where it is the mother who becomes addicted to this ephemeral, superficial experience with her lost son.

If there’s one reason to watch this already technically competent, emotionally arresting movie over any other, it would be the utterly transfixing performances given by both Laura Coover and – in the film’s rug-pulling dénouement – Sean Marquette. Coover, in particular, plays the main character Lila, and I can’t remember being this affected by a performance for some time. She feels so emotionally vulnerable, yet completely in control of how she’s reading on camera. She manages to evoke genuine loss and joy without it ever seeming as if she’s reaching for the feeling. Both Coover and Marquette bring an authenticity to their roles which could move a viewer to tears.

Without delving in to explicit spoiler territory, I’d like to address the piece’s final moments. It’s a gut punch – a well-constructed one – which leaves us feeling completely empty inside. Yet as well-constructed as it is, this reviewer questions whether this story needs it. Were As Easy as Closing Your Eyes to end optimistically, it would not deter from the overall darkness that’s been so effectively conveyed. The current ending, while technically sound and honestly mind-blowing, could be compared in ways to a Black Mirror ending.

This is better than Black Mirror; it reaches higher and achieves more with less. The famously divisive ending of A.I. (which this reviewer believes to be genius) better evokes the kind of melancholy ambiguity that may have pushed this movie into 5-star territory. But right now, I’m almost less inclined to think too hard about the ending because it is just so cynical and terrifying; - and in the long run, one might be more inclined to block it out of one’s memory instead of revisiting and pondering on this already haunting story.

The narrative and performances are so fascinating that one almost neglects to discuss the technical... This is a well-lensed picture undoubtedly. Arguably, it could be slightly more dynamic colour-wise, but the stunning photography on show already possesses a strength of depth. A highlight would have to come during Lila’s fantasy, when she sits amongst the hills with her son at dusk. This sequence – and the short film as a whole – serves as an astonishing work of film craft.