Review by riverwildeuk

After a year of being introduced to short films by fellow filmmakers and experiencing second hand the less than impressive intelligence of programmers at various festivals especially Stateside, I decided that I will express my opinions as an audience about various short films I have come across since I do not belong to the short film-making fraternity worldwide. 'This is Vanity' is a short film indeed that pats itself on the back for being shot on 35mm and believes that it is a good short. Sadly, it is not. After watching a plethora of urban British films, the antagonist gang in the story are nothing but clichés without any depth of character or investigation. The two protagonists make for biting into your curiosity but that soon fizzles as the story takes the obvious and 'seen before approach' and culminating into a confusing third act purely for shock value. They are some nice production moments including pyrotechnic effects but ultimately it is a poor story with unimaginative directing and uninteresting characters. If the short of the week, blurb is to be believed then one has to question why give such curative power to a site like Short of the week which clearly does not understand story-telling and is only interested in the production values.