Where Love Lies
What if you could meet the perfect, ideal person who was a 100% match? Introducing: DREAMMATE. No more guessing about love. 100% compatibility. In this short film, Darwin develops a dating app to help him find the perfect mate but his true self believes in a more traditional approach to finding love.
The purpose of the dating app is clear. Why settle for someone who is only a 98% match when 100 is your soul mate? The app is designed to identify a mate who is completely compatible. But even when a computer matchup strips away all the inconsistencies of history, personality, and other factors, and determines that a couple is well suited for one another, human beings are not predictable. They have a way of hiding behind questionnaires and misinterpreting their true feelings. Real life (and true love) has a way of interfering with algorithms.
In this beautifully shot and well performed film, Darwin is a young man searching for his soul mate. Heartbroken over a woman who ‘is good on paper’ and computer compatible in all ways, he is forced to accept that perhaps he is not the best fit for her when she breaks up with him. When his phone is accidentally crushed by a train, he loses all contact with her and resorts to using traditional technology to reach out to her. She is non-responsive, despite his constant phone calls and awkward pleas.
Some things are not meant to be, and this film is a tender reminder to how sometimes we need to move on to new relationships, even though our hearts may not be ready to. Despite creating a successful app, he continues to chase his ‘dream girl’ on the train each day, and runs away from the possibility of a new, real love. Her memory wakes him at night, haunts him, and distracts him in all he does. And when new love chases him, he shies cautiously away.
This film is an honest and thoughtful reflection of the heartache we must all go through to find love, and how it is not as easily found as a dating app might suggest. With millions and millions of people around the world all seeking the love and meaning we need and want in our lives, how do we find it? In this film, we explore how sometimes we all need to ‘get off the train’ to pursue love and life in ways that are more real, and meaningful, and not trust that a computer app can do the work for us.
In a telling scene in the film, our protagonist pretends he is a computer who has a simple ‘power down’ button. The girl smiles and pushes his belly, and he pretends to turn off until she presses him again. If only our emotions could be so simple. Even though this short scene is to show the playfulness of their romance, it also shows a deeper thought behind the film and how human beings are not capable of simply shutting down when we need to stop feeling. To treat the complex relationships between people as something as simple as a computer programming function is to dismiss what it means to be human, As much as we may want to simplify the act of finding love and true intimacy, it is not possible or real.
The production values on this film were excellent, performances solid, and the music was thoughtful and suitable. The editing and direction were consistent, and helped to make this little film one that captured and held the audience. My heart was broken along with his, and it left me rooting for our hero character to find the love he was seeking. I’d love to see more work from this filmmaker. Kevin De Witt is a talented filmmaker, and the ensemble of cinematographers captured the film beautifully. Ordinarily, I would have thought so many photographers would have complicated the visuals and editing (and they may have), but the end result is a beautiful montage of images that break our hearts, and leave us hopeful for new love for our characters.
