A suave young man is in love with an image in a picture frame. To find out if the love he feels is reciprocated he picks a flower and, in the time honoured fashion, proceeds to pick a petal off saying `loves me' or `loves me not'. He continues this despite the pain of the flower but then the emotion of loving or not loving manifests itself to him in surprising ways.
The story here allows for all sorts of things to happen animation-wise. Each time the man picks a `loves me' petal he is treated to something nice, however each time the `loves me not' petal comes off, his fate is a little less pleasant. This allows the film to imagine some humorous things to happen to the man my favourite being him fighting off his own hand, which holds a gun to his head, as he tries to pick the `loves me' petal! The film builds nicely and it is a good, if predictable, climax.
The animation looks basic at first as it is two characters (including the flower) against a quite ordinary (dare I say plain!) background. However the more extreme the events become the more the animation comes into play. I felt this justified the decision to keep a plain background as it made the sudden entry of things (good and bad) into the shot that much more immediate and evident.
Overall I must admit to not liking all of Aardman's work outside of their mainstream stuff like Wallace & Gromit, but I did enjoy this. It seemed to promise little from the start but came off as a well delivered, amusing little short.
