How to Lose Weight in 4 Easy Steps

Excellent short-film, perfect voice-over making it a compelling story and pleasant to watch.

I am a twenty-two year old man. At this moment in time, February, the new start of a year which is publicly renown for starting to loose weight plans. In my case an even greater similarity stage in life as the main character, therefore making this content so empathetic for me. Probably for a whole lot other young adult men out there too. Furthermore I like that you added recently discovered facts abut food at the end, making it at the same time also educational.

I was already motivated and had a strategy but this will help me get through all the major changes life brings Thank you for making this, and hoping eagerly for your next short film!

Always good to leave room for improvement of my rating, Life is all about getting to perfection and never materializing it.

I laughed continuously. The way it is structured got my attention. It has bullet proof points that you have to "follow", along with comical explanations. It's worth the time. I hope you find it as hilarious as I did.

Watching this film, I was very pleased. Honestly, I did not expect the turn of events that the film decided to take. The film is centered around a character who is getting over his recent break up with his girlfriend.

To get over his ex-girlfriend, the main character decides to begin a gym regime. Initially he wasn't too sure about the gym routine, but as he began to see the changes his mind and body were going through he realizes that it was for the best. He soon finds a new love and realizes that he isn't a piece of sh*t anymore after a year.

This Oscar winning film is probably one of the greatest short films that I've seen. This film maker hasn't made another film recently, but is planning on producing a TV show soon. The film was based on an essay on the same subject, but after reading the essay, I realized that the film's adaptation was very tasteful. The film adds much more to the essay than you would expect a film to do. I honestly haven't seen many other films in this style, but compared to the shorts that we have seen in class, this one was much better.

It was much better for several reasons. The cinematography of this film was captivating because most of it was shot from his view, while other scenes were filmed from a 3rd person observer view. Most of these shots gave us a deeper understanding about what the main character was thinking during the more interesting scenes. For example, when the main character is on top of the parking deck looking at the empty office buildings and is talking to Melisa. During that moment, we realize that he fell in love with this girl. She is everything that he wanted in a girlfriend that he didn't have in his last one.

Another scene that stood out was when his ex-girlfriend was parading her new boyfriend around work and all the main character could imagine was him having sex with his ex. This scene shows how he hadn't actually gotten over his ex-girlfriend at this point in time. He was still trying to get over the fact that she had moved on and he hadn't. This in turn becomes a major motivator for him to work harder to reach his goals.

A major reason why this film was so enjoyable was because of its plot. It kept you engaged through comedy. If the same story was being told without the comedic relief that the film employed, then I believe that we would have a hard time enjoying the movie. However, there was only a single character that arced during the film. The main character was the only character that we truly knew anything about, and he was the only one who arced. I believe that this was a meaningful and useful employment of the lack of development of other characters. The other characters in this film only existed to create conflict with the main character.

Overall, I believe that there were two social commentaries that this film was trying to convey. The first being that good things only come through hard work and perseverance. Throughout the film, the main character considers himself to be a piece of sh*t, but after an entire year he realizes how different he is at the end. His hard work and perseverance is what was needed to make him understand that he isn't sh*t anymore, he is happy and beautiful.

His thoughts about being beautiful stem from his ex. She essentially was the motivation for him to begin going to the gym. He believed that she was the most beautiful woman that he would ever be able to be with and he needed to redeem himself in her eyes so that she would get back with him. However, as he continued to put in work at the gym, his vision of beauty changed. The moment when his ex called him in the middle of the night and he decided not to answer was because he no longer believed that she was the kind of beauty that he was yearning for.

Melisa became his new ideal beauty. When he looks out at the lights and only sees empty office spaces, but she sees people's lives. She is everything that he was missing in his life. After that moment, he is truly the changed man. The next day he sees that a year has passed and how much he has done to change to become who he is today. As soon as he steps in the sh*t, he realizes he isn't sh*t anymore. So much has changed to make the difference in the type of person he has become.

Interesting to watch this film without having known anything about it; at least, I found it interesting to be carried along by it but also then to have to reflect on it. I read some of the comments here, on Short of the Week (where I saw this) and on the site holding the original essay on which this is based – a lot of people taking the title at face value. Maybe this is understandable, because the film does make it look like such an advice film, and it does show the lead actor toning up significantly, but the workout aspect of the film is less about losing weight, and more about time healing.

The character throws himself into something to an almost unhealthy degree (here it is the gym, but it can be anything I think). With time he starts to break out of it, and find a new path for his life that is not defined by the pain of a previous relationship. This is delivered at pace and is generally amusing if deliberately not hilarious. The voicework and performances are all spot on – and credit to the editing, which is practically a character here. I wondered if the film hung its hat too much on the value of the person being defined by the presence of a relationship, and on reflection this bothered me a bit; but on the other hand it all rings true for those of us who have been through breakups (whether we went into the gym or not).

I'm still not wholly sold on its message (and the way others genuinely take it as a film about getting in shape sort of confirms that it is not strong on that front) but I enjoyed the energy, the pace, the honesty, and the way all parts work together as a whole.