At a crossroads between having a better life or taking a familiar path, a man may make the choice that destroys his future. “Love & Other Crimes” (2026) is a twenty-two-minute short about Noah Thomas (Justin P. Slaughter) who meets the woman of his dreams, waitress Shaye Matthews (Jaelyn Sierra). He also bumps into a former high school friend, Parker Coleman (Jon Meggison), and accepts Parker’s offer to crash at his place, which leads to becoming reacquainted with Jason “Jay” Summers (Jordan Nancarrow), who is shady.

While the actors imbue the roles with a warmth and substance lacking on the page, it is not sufficient for the audience to get invested in the relationship or Noah’s choices. Jay eclipses the main characters because he is the only character with clear motivations and psychological framework. Noah is too much of a blank slate to understand what Shaye would see in him other than they are both attractive, pleasant people, especially considering she knows about his sketchy friends. There is no sense of who Noah was before misfortune struck or who he wants to become other than Shaye’s man. Starting the film at the last scene drains any narrative tension.

Writer Brandon Newman’s other narrative choices such as playing with when and where Noah was in subsequent scenes was more interesting than the characters.  It was easier to get invested in the plot as a puzzle to solve than the character arcs since the outcome was shown at the outset. The mistake may be trying to fit an entire movie into a short than create a short that feels as rich and textured as an entire movie. The ambiguous ending does not help. Director Clarito Zapanta tried to add some clever touches that did not always work such as shooting from the floor’s perspective and shooting the scene through a glass coffee table. While mostly well executed, the story needs work and perhaps needs a woman’s touch.