I guess something is wrong with me deep down because late in this film there is a very dark twist that I thought would be the ending and suddenly I was a lot more engaged in the film, only for it to prove me wrong and have more of a safe ending. Anyway, the plot here is two old sisters looking back over family photos reminiscing about their lives and all the good times together. The animation of the memories is good and I liked the black and white sketchiness of it and the way it changed things to be more representative of the feelings and sense of the time rather than the specific memory of the events. This allowed the creator to have some imagination in there and I appreciated this.
The two older women were less well animated and I didn't care for their sections as much, which was a problem. The key scene in the film is the message we take away, where one sister is hurt and angry at the other, nearly causing her death. At this point I was impressed that it went so dark and I assumed that the best and only ending would be to reveal that there is really only one old woman now, drinking alone and imagining the other – which would have made the same point but in a much harsher way. Again perhaps something is wrong with me that I prefer such darkness but I would have liked this more than the actual ending.
The actual ending sees the two women called for dinner by an angel and then fly off to get it. As an idea it is nice that they are together but it adds to the rather comic feel to the short, which I did not like as much. The music I also could have done without as it is annoyingly twee throughout – again the "near death" scene impacted me some also because that music stopped. On top of the lesser ending, we immediately have a joke credit that it was made "on location" – which is a silly joke for an animated film set in heaven and again just grated with me that it undercut itself with touches like this. It is all still a nice short and mostly it works with the memory sections being very well done, but the music, the lesser ending and the unnecessary comic tone hurt it n my memory.
The two older women were less well animated and I didn't care for their sections as much, which was a problem. The key scene in the film is the message we take away, where one sister is hurt and angry at the other, nearly causing her death. At this point I was impressed that it went so dark and I assumed that the best and only ending would be to reveal that there is really only one old woman now, drinking alone and imagining the other – which would have made the same point but in a much harsher way. Again perhaps something is wrong with me that I prefer such darkness but I would have liked this more than the actual ending.
The actual ending sees the two women called for dinner by an angel and then fly off to get it. As an idea it is nice that they are together but it adds to the rather comic feel to the short, which I did not like as much. The music I also could have done without as it is annoyingly twee throughout – again the "near death" scene impacted me some also because that music stopped. On top of the lesser ending, we immediately have a joke credit that it was made "on location" – which is a silly joke for an animated film set in heaven and again just grated with me that it undercut itself with touches like this. It is all still a nice short and mostly it works with the memory sections being very well done, but the music, the lesser ending and the unnecessary comic tone hurt it n my memory.