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Short Films
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If Anything Happens, I Love You, an animated short film that released on Netflix today, is a beautiful but excruciatingly painful portrait of a tragedy. It’s the kind of art that is so moving, and so honest, that it feels like it must be coming from personal experience. And yet, If Anything Happens, I Love You is not based on a true story—or at least, not any one true story in particular. Instead, it’s the tale that is sadly known by far too many parents in this country: The aftermath of losing a child in a school shooting.
Written and directed by Will McCormack (Toy Story 4, Celeste and Jesse Forever) and Michael Govier, with gorgeous animation from Youngran Nho and his team, this 12-minute, wordless short tells the story of two grieving parents. At first, we don’t know why the married couple is eating dinner in sullen silence, the shadow of an argument hanging over them. But we start to suspect, as the mom studiously avoids a room in the house and the dad stares dead-eyed at the TV, that they have lost something too great for words.
Those suspicions are confirmed when the memory of a little girl comes flooding back, triggered by the family cat accidentally turning on the record player in her room. The song “1950” by King Princess fills the air, and the parents remember their vibrant 10-year-old young girl who played soccer, took selfies, and loved life, until one day she went to school and never came back. No violence is drawn out. We see only the barest sketch of school doors and hear only the blood-curdling sounds of gunshots. Then, over the sound of sirens, we see the last text sent on the young girl’s phone: “If anything happens, I love you.”
It echoes the heartbreaking texts sent by students to their loved ones at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in 2018. And though it’s not a loss that either McCormack or Govier has felt first-hand, the filmmakers spoke with grieving parents and worked with Everytown for Gun Safety while making the film. “We wanted to create an elegy for these parents who have dealt with that grief that no one should have to go through,” McCormack said in an interview with Animation Scoop.
“You’re watching a grieving process,” Govier added in the same interview. “I do think there’s hope within it because you’re seeing the human spirit and how much the human spirit can endure and go forward. That is a huge testament to all of us and also to survivors – and also the ones who were lost.”
It’s all but impossible to get to the end of If Anything Happens, I Love You without sobbing. To be honest, I started crying again just thinking about it. It is easily one of the most powerful short films of the year, so don’t be too surprised if you hear about it during Oscar season. And don’t dry those eyes just yet—Netflix has two more heavy-hitter short films coming up: Canvas directed by former Pixar animator Frank E. Abney III, about an artist who tries to recapture the magic after losing his wife; and Cops and Robbers directed by Arnon Manor and Timothy Ware-Hill, inspired by the deadly killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man who was shot and killed by a white former police officer and his son in February.
