Two friends, Mia and Teo, meet up one evening and, over a glass of wine, debate the philosophy of love and life in Sophie Dominique Parea’s Play Pretend.
Back in 1995, Richard Linklater gave us Before Sunrise a romantic drama that followed two strangers who meet on a train and spend a night together in Vienna. As they wander the city, talking and getting to know each other, a deep connection forms between them. The film captures the beauty of chance encounters and the brief nature of love, exploring themes of fate, destiny, and the power of human connection. With its realistic dialogue, intimate atmosphere, and expressive cinematography, Before Sunrise became a timeless classic that has had audiences returning to the original for decades and became so popular it even spawned sequels.
“Play Pretend” takes this template and sets its story in a house shared by two people. That it becomes an exploration of love, loss, and the illusion of longevity is a given, but in order to fully engulf its viewers it needs to also be cinematic and it is here where the Play Pretend unfortunately falls short.
The film centres around Mia and Teo, two friends grappling with their own experiences with love. Ana Parvu plays Mia, and she takes on the Julie Delpy role as realist Mia, who views relationships as inevitably doomed to end in pain. While Teo, played by Damian Reyes-Fox, is our Ethan Hawke, an optimistic romantic who believes love can transform individuals for the better.
In trying to forget their own problems, Mia and Teo pretend to be a long-term couple trying to understand what it’s like to be in a serious relationship, with both the good and bad parts. They create a fake world where their dreams and worries can come true. But as the movie goes on, their fake relationship starts to fall apart. The fun and excitement they felt at first turn into the normal, boring parts of everyday life and they start to struggle with keeping up their pretend relationship, and it becomes harder and harder.
This 16-minute short film does delve into the complexities of human relationships and Parea’s script offers us some thought-provoking meditations on the nature of love and its potential pitfalls. But the film itself remains very static, with our couple either sitting down talking to each other or standing up talking to each other, this isn’t a problem if you can make the story more interesting by giving the audience different angles to view. But for the majority of the film we are given mid-shots, two shots, and our two attractive leads talking to each other in profile.
Ultimately, “Play Pretend” explores how relationships can begin and end; reminding us of the fleeting nature of love, the importance of living in the present moment, and the power of imagination to shape our understanding of the world. While the film’s ending may leave viewers with a sense of disappointment, it does offer a glimmer of hope, that there is always the possibility of finding meaning and connection.
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