If Anything Happens, I Love You, the 2021 Academy Award winning short film teaches us within its beautifully animated thirteen minutes to hold the ones we love close and to let them know that if anything happens, we love them. The short is simply composed and has no dialogue, just a music selection featuring King Princess’s “1950” as well as original compositions by Lindsay Marcus that are perfectly placed to tangle ones heart strings.
The film takes us through the aftermath of marriage and family after a parent’s worst nightmare becomes reality. It consistently begs the questions, “Where do we go from here?” and “How can we possibly move on from this?” A question too many parents in America find themselves asking after simply sending their child to school.
If Anything Happens, I Love You sheds a serious light on gun violence in America, without showing a single gun. Instead, we see how first kisses and soccer games turn into arguments at the dinner table and unbelievable loneliness within a matter of seconds.
While the story is about loss, and a plea to end gun violence in America. It is also a story of rebuilding and reconnection, seeing a small glimmer of dim light in an incredibly dark tunnel and finally having some clue of what comes next.
Upon winning the Academy Award for "Best Short Film" co-directors Will McCormack and Michael Govier took the stage to dedicate their win to families who have lost love ones to gun violence and to say, "We deserve better than to live in a country where more than one hundred people die by gun violence every single day. We deserve better. We must do better. We will do better." As of 2018, America ranked among the top 30 countries in the world facing mass gun violence.