A Father's Gift
A short film by Bunee Tomlinson, A FATHER’S GIFT explores how a family copes after a tragedy when the father, Joe (played by Kyle Penington) is killed in a freak traffic accident. This film explores the depths of generational loss, feelings of remorse and things unsaid, and the bonds of family that cannot be broken even through death.
The day of the accident the wife, Kate (Jami Harris) and her son Matthew (Zach McGee) are at the park. While Matthew is running around, being a kid, Kate is taking pictures of him with a camera that Joe left out before he went off to work. Upon looking at the pictures that she’d taken that day, she can see someone who looks like Joe in all of them, even though he wasn’t actually there that day. It’s revealed that the man in the pictures is actually Joe’s father who died many years prior. These images lead her on a hunt to find out what they mean, taking her to where her husband died, and what he left behind for them.
Visually the movie feels a little inconsistent at times, but overall, the filmmaker seems to have a good eye for getting the right shots (which could also just be good editing) of his actors and actresses that help really show the range of emotions they are putting into their characters. The lighting gives the movie a bit of a washed-out look, but it’s difficult to say whether or not this was done deliberately as a style choice, or if the settings on the camera just weren’t set consistently for each scene.
The audio is very well balanced through this movie, and the score is well done too. There is very little difference in the audio in both indoor and outdoor scenes, and they dialogue is very blended masterfully with the score, something that a lot of feature films don’t even get right.
A FATHER’S GIFT pays off in what it sets out to do and is a moving family drama. Also, whether it is intentional or not, the film is cut at a 22 (almost 23) minute runtime, which is very advantageous because that means it could possibly get picked up to be on television with little to no cuts needed to make it fit TV standards. This isn’t really relative to the review, but something that I know from speaking to acquisitions people, that it is something they look for when looking at shorts.
