A young woman eyes a man on the subway.
CRUSH is used with permission from Giacomo Gex. Learn more at [ Ссылка ].
Natalie is taking the subway one day in New York when she spots an intriguing man reading a book amid a sea of others absorbed in their phones. When he gets off, she makes a spontaneous decision to follow and talk with him.
They bond over his book, which leads to a date between Natalie and Marcus... and a deeply romantic relationship full of rich highs and lows, though with an unexpected ending.
Directed by Giacomo Gex and written by Shai Frumkin and Kyvon Edwin -- who also plays the co-lead roles of Natalie and Marcus, respectively -- this romantic short has a tenderness and delicacy, full of the small, intimate details that make up a relationship. Told with a muted urban naturalism in the visual style, the storytelling takes time to build up Natalie and Marcus's "meet cute" on a crowded subway train, as she looks up and sees someone who will turn out to be the man of her dreams. The content of their initial conversation may be the subject of Marcus's book, but the subtext is mutual intrigue and attraction.
That attraction blossoms into a richly realized relationship, whose fleeting but key moments and details are woven together in a lovely, well-crafted montage. As Natalie and Marcus, Frumkin and Edwin have an easy, charming rapport, capturing both the hopeful, flirtatious spark at the relationship's beginning and the more settled, lived-in moments of deep contentment as their love develops. There are conflicts and tension, but overall, the vibe is one of two people deeply in love, making a life together that blossoms into mutual commitment.
The film's biggest accomplishment may be evoking the fullness and depth of this relationship in such a compressed time, showing the poetry and romance of an ordinary life together, full of memories, revelations, arguments, shared meals, sleeping in and having a family. Companionship, sharing a home and family, intimacy, being there for someone through it all, thorns and all: we understand how much it enriches existence, giving both comfort and meaning for Natalie and Marcus and making us care about their fate. But true to the multiple meanings of its title, CRUSH has some tricks up its sleeve. And as it unfurls, it provokes questions of our phone- and tech-saturated society. This is nothing new for a growing number of films, but what CRUSH does well is underscoring what's at stake when we don't look up from our little screens -- and miss those fleeting but key moments that make up the course of a fully realized life.
