Movies

Short of the Day: ‘Alison’ is Just Like Love – Startling, Confusing, Charming, and Heartwarming

A dramedic night in one every-couple’s relationship.
By  · Published on June 15th, 2017

A dramedic night in one every-couple’s relationship.

It’s a bit of a cliché to compare a romantic relationship to a rollercoaster, but like all clichés, it’s an apt description. Nothing can elevate you to unknown heights and also send you plummeting to unimaginable lows like love. This is because powerful emotions can’t be isolated, if a person makes you love them with all your heart, there’s also going to be equivocal frustration and irritation at times, and the best relationships are those that accept this dichotomy and learn to live with it in balance.

Alison, a short film directed by David Lester and written by actress Jessica Rose, is a look at a couple striving to find this balance after a rollercoaster of a night out. There’s public urination, binge eating, a little illness, a little loving, and the morning after, all of which forms a plot like an electrocardiogram line, peaking one moment and plunging the next.

I was drawn to a lot about Alison – the chemistry of Rose and Kristopher Turner, who plays her boyfriend, the episodic structure taking place within a limited timeframe, the intimacy of the cinematography even in (or especially in) moments of levity, and mostly the reality Rose has written. Like real love, Alison is no one thing, it is an amalgam of many little emotions that when taken as a whole equal a living, breathing relationship.

There are lots of films out there about capital-L Love, that sweeping, epic emotion that parts the clouds and gives life purpose, and there are a lot of films out there about real, regular love, that sweet and often messy thing that changes us not dramatically but gradually, minute by minute, day by day, year by year. Alison, I believe, is a perfect balance of Love and love, showcasing how powerful the everyday things can be, and how it’s the minutiae that make up the big moments.

This one’s for lovers everywhere, be sure to give it a share.

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