If Anything Happens I Love You (2020)

I was about to watch yet another Brooklyn Nine-Nine episode when Netflix played the trailer to If Anything Happens I Love You. I had never heard of it before so, before venturing into another dreadful film, I googled it. While the score was high — 8/10 on IMDb —, it was the storyline that convinced me I should have given this short animated feature a chance. And I'm glad I did because it's one of the saddest and heartbreaking and yet beautiful and touching shorts I've ever seen. 

The short starts with two parents eating on parallel sides of the dinner table. While their shadows, which represent their emotions, are shown arguing, the parents won't talk to each other, they won't even look up from their plates. Right when the mom is about to say or do something, the dad goes outside and stops looking at a tear on the wall painted with blue. 

Later, the mom has a breakdown while picking up the laundry from the washing machine as she finds a shirt that belonged to their daughter and, while her shadow is trying to comfort her, a soccer ball falls down from the washing machine, rolls all the way to the daughter's room and accidentally plays a record. This motives the mother to enter the room and what follows is a series of flashbacks — a road trip to the Grand Canyons; the time the parents fell in love; the one time the daughter caused the tear on the wall while playing soccer; her 10th birthday and first kiss; the day she went to school and a school shooting ended her life. 

As you can imagine, If Anything Happens I Love You is filled with sad, emotional and quite devastating moments — especially when the shadows parents try to protect their daughter and stop her from going to school that day. This is a film that, in its brief run time of 12 minutes, makes a powerful commentary on the lack of regulation of gun law while conveying the pain and grief of those who have lost someone because of it.

The short is also very beautifully animated with a very unique style that allows, through the characters' body language and the colours, to convey its themes of depression and grief while telling the story with plenty of heart and love. As for the shadows, they are perfectly used to deliver the parents' emotions in a way that words could never do.

If you have Netflix, please give it a chance.