This is love!?: A Romance of Enabling, Evading, and Ending up Exhausted

Haley Rice’s 11-minute rom-com about a couple who might be getting too comfortable with one another without reaping any of the rewards of that, This is love!? creates a balanced meal of comedy, cuteness, and the unflattering flavours of codependency. 

A manchild who wants to be a parent (Peter, played by J.D. Brookshire) and a bad boy-mother figure who is too drained taking care of him to want the responsibility of yet another human being’s wellbeing (Tom Hausher, also the screenwriter, as Luke), the characters of This is love!? have a long conversation long overdue, but that would go against the very nature of their relationship. Instead, fuelled by their individual flaws, they bicker about oblique nothings until they add up to one symptomatic bomb. 

And yet, they do have a complex kind of chemistry. In fact, it is part of the reason why they persist in their bickering. That, combined with the frustrating limbo of a codependent relationship, form the core of the film’s humour. The limbo is the point; to watch all the ways in which its excesses make its inhabitants push and leak through its limits. 

Set on the day of a wedding they have to attend, the stress of glamorously triumphing over everyone else brings out the flaws and insecurities of each, to which the other sometimes allows grace. Brookshire and Hausher’s performances successfully bounce Peter’s childishness and Luke’s vanity against the better parts of their characters. The editing rivals them in serving up the comedic beats with the tempo of pop music. 

So, is this love? Depends on the context. Yes, in a comedy; no, in a romantic drama. It is what it is, in a real life situation (followed by mid-life crises and regret, but that is a can of worms for later). The horrible, funny, and remarkable thing is how well their shortcomings complement each other. The pull of that, often, is why we go on. 

Watch This is love!? Short Film Trailer