If Anything Happens I Love You – Short Film Review

A new short film hit Netflix on November 20 and has been very popular among viewers. The short animated film is around 12 minutes long and was directed by Will McCormack and Michael Govier. The film follows the aftermath of a tragic school shooting that leaves parents mourning for their daughter who was killed. 

Teens have been talking about the film on TikTok and even started a trend “Try not to cry when you finish watching.” Many of them would film their reaction before they watched the film and their faces were covered in tears. The hashtag “#Ifanythinghappensiloveyou” has more than 40 million views.

Throughout the film, there is no dialogue mentioned and just background music and animated figures fighting. It starts off with the two parents on opposite ends of a dining room table eating in silence. Their bodies are bowed in sadness and their shadows are animated on the wall behind them screaming at each other. The film progresses to the parents recounting that day of when they told their daughter goodbye to school and then the sounds of sudden gunshots once she enters the school. 

In an interview with Collin Souter in a RogertEbert.com article, Souter sits down with McCormack and Govier to discuss their reason for creating the film. During the time they were thinking about creating something, their main objective was to express their own grief of loved ones they had lost. However, they never anticipated for the short film to have a lot of success because most short films do not. 

Like the millions of people on TikTok, this film also made me cry. I did not expect to cry when watching it because I was able to go through about the first eight minutes without getting emotional. But as I watched the shadows of the girl’s parents try to stop her going to school, I felt the waterworks arrive. They also display where the title of the film came from; she texted her parents moments after the sound of gunshots saying, “If anything happens I love you.”