Stronger Than Pretty
Abuse. It’s sadly an aspect that has been overlooked, especially for women. Things are changing. Women are standing up for themselves, for others, and for ideas regardless of what our male-dominated culture tries to make them be. This is something that “Stronger Than Pretty” highlights. It forces us to take a step back, view our society in this day and age from a different perspective, and calls for support of the awareness anyway you can. I understand some people refuse to acknowledge these issues at hand, but know this short will change your mind (hopefully). It’s a step in the right direction.
It opens on our protagonist as she listens to her parents bicker. Her mom tells her to find a man who can treat her well and the way she deserves. It cuts to her sometime in the future meeting this man who seems to have his stuff together. We see a montage of her on dates with him and witness their happy relationship evolve. Then we see another montage of him go on a downward spiral… and he begins to abuse alcohol. Our protagonist begins to question what else she can do to keep her children safe. The rest of the story becomes pretty self-explanatory. There are arguments from the mother-in-law preaching about how her son only does the best for the kids and it suddenly becomes a reality of picking certain sides – which is more often than not an actual problem in domestic abuse. There are depictions of the aftermath from the abuse and overall, it’s really saddening to witness.
Enough with the premise (it ends on a more happier inspirational note; I promise), let’s get down to what makes this film work. The first thing I noticed was how beautiful the short film as a whole looked, which is a nice contrast to what the message of the piece is (not to judge). There’s a lot of interesting shots that foreshadow some unforeseen circumstances regarding the main character. Everything blended nicely together…
Which leads me to my other favorite thing: the editing. The montages flew by really quick and it’s amazing how much story they told in so little time. They got to point A to point B to point C really quick and it wasn’t hard to follow. The pacing was fast paced throughout the whole thing. What I liked about that is it felt more like a promotional video for a possible feature (which I hope it does). If I was a producer and was shown this short film, I’d put a lot of trust in them. There’s passion behind it.
Lastly (but not least), the message of the short film. It’s empowering. It’s saddening. And it’s moving. By the end I felt a strong urge wanting to help raise awareness, and at the very least, hold everybody (men and women) accountable for their actions. There’s no reason for abuse. It’s damaging to the children, to the individual, and to the society. I think this short film has the right set of intentions of spreading awareness but being positive. This is why I would recommend this film.
