After a 30-year separation, a pair of once teenage lovers meet to rekindle their lost romance. Amy, a waitress in the restaurant where the couple meet, witnesses this rekindling of love and realizes true love is possible.

Director Mike Stinnett explores the meaning of true love in this charming short film ‘Once Love’. The idea is intriguing and not seen as much in modern short films in favour of more hard hitting drama. Sometimes it’s refreshing to watch a short film that doesn’t push too many serious undertones and instead is fun. What you get here is a nice story with fun characters that we wished could have been explored further to really make an impact.

The production quality of the film is superb. Stinnett made a good choice putting Director of photography Hunter Harris behind the lens as it really does elevate the production. The lighting is something that really caught our eye as it’s very natural and contrasted to create a distinct look for this film. Was it not for the high quality standard, the film might have struggled. This was also achieved by the great location that they were lucky enough to have in the film which was a perfect setting for it. The sophisticated and up market look of the restaurant really created that timeless ‘love story’ film that we’ve all seen before.

The performance of Amy played by Kelsey Jension was solid and genuine, handling the source material well. At times the character felt a little too obsessed with the couples story which could have been dialled down somewhat in the writing. Regardless, Jension delivered a balanced performance that worked for the genre. The same can be said of Steve Bond who played Francis, making an authentic character with plenty of possibilities in a relatively short time.

Overall this was a promising film from Stinnett of which we have been fortunate enough to see his other work through APEX. The setup of the story was strong and would have benefitted from more moments between the old flames to create some laughs and poignant messages about warped memories of past lovers.

At times some the dialogue did come across as somewhat unnatural and would have benefitted from the actors intuition to fill in the blanks themselves. Sometimes it’s important to allow actors a chance to try their own take on a scene rather than simply deliver lines. But this can come down to many factors during a production and is not often possible due to various limitations.

We enjoyed the film very much and was a quaint take on Hollywood love stories you don’t see as much nowadays…

— APEX Film Awards