Will I See You Again? is a striking and refreshing tug at the heartstrings film. Michael Perez-Lindsey’s film is an empathetic glance at loss, lost love, sexuality, and spirituality. It is an excellent, moving drama.
After two decades of separation, two former college teammates, Max (Hosea Chanchez) and Paul (Nick Wechsler), are called to their late friend’s estate hearing. To inherit, they must confront their past relationship while undergoing a polygraph test, a journey that unveils the complexities of their bond and the secrets they’ve buried.
Death comes in many forms, and in Michael Perez-Lindsey’s short film Will I See You Again? We see it in some heartbreaking ways. First off, the death of a friend; as we breeze into our 30s and get into our 40s, death starts to become a prominent feature in our lives. Be it family, but sometimes rather suddenly, it can be friends. To lose someone young is always a tough pill to swallow. It hits you like a gut punch; that is where our film starts us off.
However, as Will I See You Again? continues, we understand the impact of the other kinds of deaths where we grieve. With Max and Paul, it is the end of a friendship and more as they are forced to dig up their long-dead past together. Perez-Lindsey and writer Rhett Lindsey take great care in allowing moments between the two men to soak in. Grief, even over a relationship and seeing someone push their sexuality to the side so that they progress themselves, is always a difficult thing to witness. Here, it has been as thoughtfully structured as possible, as there is always space for healing with many things related to death.
What impresses is how the script can weave the themes of grief, lost love, sexuality and spirituality so well together. It’s a delicate balancing act to keep all those going in a 24-minute film, yet Will I See You Again? manages to pull it off with the greatest of ease. Adding someone’s faith to a film like this is a challenging task. To not make their spirituality an easy scapegoat and the fact that Perez-Lindsey and Lindsey accomplish that needs to be thoroughly commended, as it allows the film to strike an altogether more poignant tone.
Anchoring the film are the two pitch-perfect performances from leads Hosea Chanchez and Nick Wechsler. You buy their pain at seeing one another and how they try to grapple with the challenge their late friend Jim has forced upon them. They both have the audience in the palm of their hands as even the littlest of moments has you gripped. Just beautiful work from the duo.
As pertinent as death is in Will I See You Again? The film’s overarching theme is reconnection, understanding, and embracing forgiveness. Our characters go through a tsunami of emotions here, from regret and guilt to acceptance and love. In the two top-notch performances, we see it on their faces at all times. But that is life; it’s difficult, and sometimes it is better not to embrace hate and anger but to accept people for who they are and to see where that takes us. This is a beautiful film.
★★★★
Will I See You Again? will be playing at the HollyShorts Film Festival on August 9th. Tickets and further information is available here.
For more of our coverage of the HollyShorts Film Festival, please check out our reviews below.
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