The husband and lover of a recently deceased woman meet for the first time on the day of her funeral. Written by its lead actor Andrew Medeiros and directed by its co-lead Colby Cyrus, this is Torn.
Opening at 3 am during a dark and stormy night, we see a woman in the bathroom taking tablets, one after another, after another, after another. Once finished, she faces the camera and looks at us pleadingly. This is Nora and there is nothing we can do; the screen blurs and everything goes black. We cut to four days later and we are looking at Nora again, only this time it’s her photograph and we are now at her wake, the suicide attempt was sadly successful and now Nora is dead. Amongst this environment mingles her husband Corey, played by the film’s director Cyrus. He goes through the motions and the pleasantries and then spots another guy standing outside. He goes out to introduce himself, only he already knows who the guy is, this is Emmett (played by the writer of the film Andrew Medeiros) and he has been having an affair with Nora for a long time. As they both blame each other for causing the tragedy and argue on the front lawn, we see flashbacks of Nora’s relationship with both of them. Was she happier with Corey or Emmett? Which one is to blame? Are any of them to blame? Or are they all to blame? The filmmakers wisely leave that decision up to us.
The transitions between the present day and flashbacks are neatly done, with the editing hardly noticeable at all. The scenes that take place in the present are full colour, but this changes when we travel into the past. The colour is almost completely drained from the film looking almost black-and-white. It isn’t, it is still colour but faded to a practically minuscule extent and we are left with hues of blue and grey. What these transitions enable us to do is follow each strand of the story very easily. In the 22-minute run time, we only get two flashbacks, one for each of the men in Nora’s life, so there is an awful lot of the story missing, though we do learn that Corey and Nora lost a child together and that Emmett wanted to run away to LA with her. But nothing else is really expanded on and that leads to scenes that are full of exposition as opposed to dramatic tension.
The performances of the three main leads are great with Medeiros and Cyrus having fun exchanging insults while both getting the opportunity to show their acting chops during their work later in the short. However, despite having the least screen time, it is Eden Tuckman as Nora who is the glue that keeps the movie together. She gives a performance of warm vulnerability that enables us to easily believe she is in love with both of her admirers. Both men also look a little similar which helps to give that part of the plot a great deal of believability.
While not a total success, Torn is still an important short film that deals with grief and suicide, and when Cyrus as director and Medeiros as writer highlight the helpline number on a title card at the end of the short, it hits home exactly how important a film like this actually is.
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