Short film review - Soft

Soft is a short film directed and created by Simon Ellis, about a father who rediscovers his fear of confrontation. The film is a multi winning short winning almost 40 prizes in different film festivals.

In the film you follow Iain who gets home from work and shouts some complaints to his teenage son, Scott, who's upstairs. When making a cup of tea Iain realises that they're out of milk and goes to a conviniese store to buy some where he gets harassed by a gang and punched by the gang leader. Iain walks home, having the gang tailing him. At home Scott confesses that he has ben in a fight and Iain realises that his son was being beaten up by the same group as he just got harassed by. The group arrives in front of the house and starts shouting and throwing stuff. Finally Iain decides to go outside, but as it leads to the fight we se him being overpowered by the group.

Soft from Simon Ellis on Vimeo.

Soft plays on people's expectations of the father always protecting the house what happens when the father fails to meet those expectations. A child's nightmare might be to get bullied and have their parents finding out, but a parent's greatest nightmare would be to be bullied and having their kid find out. Being scared in front of your kid, an unthinkable humiliation.
The film is a shocking, violent and surprising, and relevant in a society where we often hear news about teenage violence and stabbing.

Simon uses different techniques when telling the story, both sound wise by adding effects like the sirene at the end to make it more dramatic and camera wise by using footage recorded on the gang member's phones to show their point of view and that way underline our moral panics about phone bullying.

Overall, I enjoyed this short film. I liked what Simon said in an earlier interview about the amount of natural lighting that was being used in the film, which was pretty inspiring and relevant for me since I won't be using any external lights when making my own project. I also liked how he used the footage of the gang members as part of the storytelling.

What i took inspiration from to my project was the kitchen scene where Iain makes himself a cup of tea. I liked the visual look and the framing of the scene and decided to adapt that into my own project.

//All images are screenshots from the film\\