‘It Was English’ drifts across the screen like a dream you don’t want to wake from – delicate, flawless, and quietly shattering. Written and directed by Brian Petchers, this romance short captures the emotional residue of love itself, the kind that leaves fingerprints on your memory.
Set in a softly-rendered New York City, the film opens with a fleeting encounter on a train platform. Charlotte Hope and Ian Nelson are magnetic in their restraint, anchoring the narrative with performances that feel lived-in.
Petchers charts the couple’s journey with a poetic hand: love, marriage, pregnancy, and the emotional terrain in between. But this isn’t a montage of milestones – it’s an atmosphere. Dan Kennedy’s cinematography is spellbinding in its quiet elegance, using long pans and fluid motion to mirror the passage of time. It’s not only beautiful to watch – it’s visually immersive. The film breathes in rhythm with its characters.
Daniel Heath’s score is more than accompaniment – it’s a character of its own. Melancholic, tender, and achingly precise, the music wraps around each scene like a memory returning at the wrong time.
Just when you think you know where it’s headed, ‘It Was English’ pivots. The twist doesn’t break the spell – it deepens it. It reminds us that love stories aren’t always linear, and that some endings hurt more because they were once so full of light.
This is a short film that doesn’t waste a second. ‘It Was English’ is a remarkable, emotionally intelligent piece of filmmaking, dream-like in tone, poetic in structure, and devastatingly human in its truth. A flawless short worth your time.
