Have Heart Review

On Thursday evening I attended the ‘Comedy: Fun Rides’ event. This event consisted of short
comedy films that varied in style between animation and live action. One of the films I watched was
an animated film called “Have Heart” (2017; Director: Will Anderson). The film showed us the lives of
two animated birds and the problems they encounter in their world. One of the birds eventually
finds itself having what appeared to be an existential crisis. I did not particularly enjoy this film for a
couple of reasons.

The first and main reason why I didn’t like this film was the fact that it was not clearly explained that
the bird characters were based on GIFs (aka a type of image format where the image appears to be
animated). If this was somehow explained at the beginning of the film then it would have made it
more enjoyable for the average viewer, as they would understand what it’s a parody of and would
appreciate the little references and in jokes. I spent the entire film trying to work out what the film
was about, and I only realised it was a parody of GIFs until I looked up the film online weeks later.
This greatly affected my enjoyment of the film and meant that I was unable to focus on the actual
characters and story because I was so distracted by the GIF parody.

The length of the film didn’t particularly help either. The rest of the films in the event were two to
seven minutes long, and served as short, snappy films with a clear story and narrative and always
kept you interested. “Have Heart” was twelve minutes long, although it felt more like twenty
minutes to me. It just felt like it dragged on and on and neither the story nor the characters was
interesting enough to justify how long it was. The fact I didn’t get what it was a parody of didn’t
exactly help as I spent what felt like twenty minutes trying to work out what I was watching. I didn’t
find it particularly funny either although maybe I would have found it more amusing had I known
what it was about.

In conclusion I wasn’t very fond of “Have Heart” because I had no idea what it was about, it dragged
on too much, and I didn’t really find it funny in anyway despite being classed as a comedy film.

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