The short film The Time of Your Life, written and produced by Mofieni Iniya, leaves the audience off kilter right from the get go. Kyra, played convincingly by Sarah Brink, who we assume is the protagonist, is walking down the street, but clearly distressed at something. Has she gotten lost? Has she lost something? We get the sense that she’s lost her keys. But this only starts to matter when two friends of hers arrive at her apartment door and find that she’s not home. In a wonderful piece of misdirection, we learn from Kyra’s friends that she has a new boyfriend, but they haven’t yet met him. So it’s somewhat less of a surprise when a strange man opens the door of Kyra’s apartment. Surely, this must be the elusive boyfriend and they’re finally getting a chance to meet him.
This moment is just the first of several clever moves by Iniya and director, Frank Juarez. One of the keys to a great horror or thriller film is the ability to use the audience’s expectations against them in creative ways (think of the unexpected demise of Janet Leigh’s character in Psycho). In The Time of Your Life, there are several great examples of this. The title itself is one great example of an ambiguous double entendre; we assume the ‘best’ time of your life is meant, but it could also be the ‘worst’ time of your life. Similarly, we assume we know who the man at the door is, but at the same time, we’re already a bit on edge because of Kyra’s obvious distress in the previous scene. We’re also a little worried when the supposed new boyfriend gets up and walks away from Kyra’s friends while they’re trying to talk to him. The great use of closeups when Kyra does come home only intensify the mood. After some alarming news from Kyra, her friends continue laughing hysterically; again, we suspect something’s wrong but we’re not quite sure what. The greatest use of misdirection, though, is the finale, which we won’t get into here.
The film is superbly shot and directed. The actors all do a fantastic job here. The rising sense of terror amidst the giggling of Kyra’s friends is a wonderful effect. The sound design plays a crucial role here, keeping us subtly off-balance.
Hidden behind all this misdirection and subterfuge lies a deeper hint about Kyra. She’s well-dressed and seems to have a good job. She’s got a boyfriend. She’s got fun friends. She’s got a dim apartment that seems perfectly fine for a young woman just starting out at the world. But she’s also got a monster under her bed, and perhaps a skeleton in her closet. Everything seems to be going well, but, the film suggests, it may not actually be going well at all. On closer inspection, her friends don’t seem to know Kyra very well and, ultimately may not be very good friends at all. We never see her boyfriend. We get the sense that Kyra, despite appearances is quite alone and not all that happy. She tries to communicate her worries to her friends, but they don’t know what she’s talking about. The monster under her bed, then, may in fact be a sort of metaphor for the isolation many might feel working away and living alone in the big city. It may be easy enough to get all the external trappings of a life that’s going the right way. But no one knows for sure what’s lurking in the other person’s closet or hiding under their bed.
Not surprisingly, The Time of Your Life has been doing well on the film festival circuit. It has already won Best Intense Short at the Pure Magic International Film Festival and is an Official Selection of the Big Sur Film Festival and Phoenix Monthly Short Film Festival.
The Time of Your Life exhibits all the elements of a successful short film. It’s easy to follow, well made, despite being short, and it ends with a punchline – the sine qua non of most great shorts. We have every reason to believe that Iniya has a bright future ahead, and we’ll be looking forward to her projects in the future.
By: Darida Rose
© 2021. UniversalCinema Mag.