Echo - Lewis Arnold

Echo is about a young girl who cons random people out of money by, creating a seemingly false "accident" her father has been involved in. The thing that stands out above all else is the performance of the female lead. There is not anything else visually or other wise that is particularly outstanding, but her convincing performance mostly compensates, along with an intriguing premise for the twist that is very thought provoking. Her performance accurately brings to life what the audience would expect of someone in that situation, with no indication of the truth behind the con. The twist reveals that the accident did in fact happen but she plays off of the emotions of that event, recreating what happened perfectly. Arnold then very much leaves this up to the audience to decide what they think of her, its very morally ambiguous, there is no clean cut right and wrong. As an audience member you don't know whether to condemn or feel sorry for her. It is also not clear whether she does it to torture her self or maybe even a really obscure form of self therapy hoping one day she can move on. I really liked this about the short film, it's refreshing, as we aren't told how to feel like most films. This is something I would consider implementing into my short film, as it sort of reflects reality as life is not simply right or wrong, and it fits in with some of my ideas of creating a believable and realistic piece.