If Anything Happens I Love You

28 December 2020 / by Clernie Guintodan
If Anything Happens I Love You film still
Film
If Anything Happens to You
A wise person once said “To lose a child is like losing your breath and never catching it again” and this movie has proven it to be true. In If Anything Happens I Love You both parents have lost their voices, isolated themselves and drowned themselves in agony.
Rating:
8/10

Michael Govier and Will McCormack have truly outdone themselves in this chaotic and unblessed year. This slice-of-life, silent film, If Anything Happens I Love You, leaves viewers in a puddle of tears so deep, you could swim in it. It tells the story of how a mother and a father cope with the death of their daughter who was killed in a school shooting.

A wise person once said “To lose a child is like losing your breath and never catching it again” and this movie has proven it to be true. In If Anything Happens I Love You both parents have lost their voices, isolated themselves and drowned themselves in agony. Their love for their child leads them to reminisce about the memories of when she was alive only to remind them how limited those memories really are. Both can only blame themselves as they realize their powerlessness in preventing her death, leaving them distraught and stripped of the love and hope that was once there.

This film (running only twelve minutes) is the type that lingers within you sheerly through it’s symbolism and shadows. For an animated film where black and white are so prominent, the blue created a great contrast for the overall picture.

Throughout the film the colour blue is used to signify the daughter, and each time the parents encountered the colour it would trigger memories. When the mother saw her late daughter’s blue shorts, she’d hold onto it with care with tears sliding down her face. And as the father walks throughout their backyard, he comes upon a wall that was partially painted blue, reminding him of how his daughter made a crack in the wall during soccer practice.

This twelve-minute film visually represents an unfortunate reality of the world today. It’s a direct product of the aftermath of mass school shootings that have happened across the United States of America and it’s rife with messaging that we need not forget despite the pandemic.