Anywhere but HereUnited Kingdom 2016Director: Jack Woods

Reviewed by J. R. Woods

31 | P a g e

A cold autumn day a MIDDLE AGED MAN is in his garden digging up a flower and putting it in a bag. He then puts it on a wall and fills in the hole with soil. He then goes and gets a bird-table and puts it on top of the spot their used to be a flower. He then walks in the house and gives the flower to a YOUNG GIRL. He then says something to her and walks out of the room closing the door behind him.

The young girl is dressed up warm and walks away from the house. She then walks out of the garden and down the pavement to a derelict patch of grass. After looking at the patch of grass for a while, she decides it best not to plant in there. She then walks to a local children’s park and starts trying to find a place to plant the flower. After a ball flies past her and nearly hits the spot she was looking to plant the flower in. She decides to move the flower to a safer place.

She goes to a forest and decides to take a rest on a log. A COMMUNITY OFFENDER is picking up rubbish in the background with a bright green vest on and a black bag. After a small amount of time he sits on the log and tries to see what the girls holding. He then opens in his rubbish bag and takes out several grubby toys. He then shows them to the girl and lays them on the floor. She picks up a dog toy and he gently

The Young Adult, Lewis Woods, stepping away from the tense encounter with the Young Girl, Amber Clough.

Directed by Production Beacon Media CastJack Woods Designer Productions Amber CloughWritten by Jack Woods In association Young GirlJack Woods Music with Lewis WoodsDirector of Composer JRW Films CommunityPhotography Jack Woods and OffenderJack Woods Make-up Realwatch Alan WoodsEdited by Design Entertainment Middle agedJack Woods Claire Clough man

makes a link with the young girl through the toys he offers and the flower he plants. The Most Beautiful Man in the World the connection isn’t really there’s just a brief interaction through living creatures like the pet dog and the bug. The film has great cinematography as well as a 4:3 aspect ratio to make it feel more innocent. We see this film from the girl’s point of view, this is very significant as she is the protagonist, this contributes to the tension because we are able to feel her love for the flower within the plot and it emanates to the viewer through the performance. This amplifies the anxiety and pressure of the piece because she trusts the community offender with

the flower whereas we have no indication of what he is going to do with it. After the community offender plants the flower, I found myself sighing a breath of relief. This is because there was too much tension built up in the scene. It was a very good structure to the film and the climax felt very rewarding, but I felt that only after the end when he picks his bag up and walks away. When we see the last shot of the flower planted in the ground, we feel relief because the girl is able to be happy that the flower is safe and it is in a place that it can stay for the rest of its life. This film in the end is quite heart-warming and this is an enjoyable piece of film.

This is a film made by director, Jack Woods, straight from the set of Redemption, his new short film takes place in the suburbs of London. Nature is under threat and a Young girl is on a mission to help a flower. As innocent as this tale is, there is a lot of tension within the plot when Lewis Woods, playing a youth community offender, he approaches the girl curiously, and this causes tension for the crowd. Amber Clough gives a solid performance as the Young girl in the piece. In her film debut, she puts in a strong performance as the wordless girl, travelling around we see moving around the place with a mixture of enjoyment, curiosity and worry all show itself to her expression. The films location also attributed to the way emotion is felt about the actor, since it is a young female who is alone in a forest with a potentially dangerous person, it makes the audience feel uneasy. This film highlights the importance of teaching your children about stranger danger as the Young girl goes through a journey, searching for a place to plant her flower whilst also coming across places that she is unable to plant her flower, however this stops when she finds a place, the narrative is then centred around this place marking the end of her journey. The piece also challenges other key issues such as environmental issues and how much people care about the greenery. It tries to highlight a lot of issues within the piece without feeling packed and bloated with them. Altogether this is a solid piece of cinematography, with standout performances from the two main actors, Lewis Woods and Amber Clough. The direction and camerawork is very well choreographed. The piece brings to life a worst case scenario, creating tension while leaving you on the edge of your seat throughout the whole encounter. It then delivers an ending of maturity and catharsis by allowing the characters to wordlessly end the interaction in complete innocence. Jack Woods’ new film has a definitive link to the 2002 film, The Most Beautiful Man in the World by Alicia Duffy, this comes from the uneasy meeting of a third party. However there are clear differences between the two. The first being the people themselves the offender in Jack Woods’ film