From Omeleto.
A young woman tries to model.
THE BUTTERFLY is used with permission from Nicholas Richman and Chris Roy. Learn more at https://instagram.com/thebutterfly_shortfilm.
El wants to be a model, just like the ones she sees on social media. But she’s not the tall, thin and willowy glamazon that most people think of when they envision a typical model. As a result, she feels insecure about her appearance.
When she finds herself with an opportunity to embark on her goal, she must challenge her fears, redefine what she thinks is beautiful and see herself in a different light.
Directed and written by Nicholas Richman and Chris Roy, this vividly realized short drama explores themes of body positivity, self-worth and beauty in a society where the goalposts are changing and the ways of achieving physical ideals become ever more surreal. These themes are developed through El’s internal journey as she searches for confidence and affirmation, as well as through her outlandish encounter with a self-improvement service, which serves as a sly send-up of a self-improvement industry preying on people’s fears and insecurities. Together, these narrative strands make up a story that is both fascinating and smart in its vision and emotionally resonant in its feeling.
Creatively, the film finds a fascinating tension between the naturalistic and the stylized. We meet El as she rides on a gritty subway train, but the musical score has a luminous, otherworldly quality, presaging her dream of a strange clinic that promises to make her feel more beautiful via a "successful transfiguration." The clinic sequence is shot with a distinct sense of distinctive surreality, with abrasive rhythms and transitions between shots that underscore El’s disorientation. It’s a unique encapsulation of how we’re mentally programmed into our ideals of glamour, beauty and worth, both sly, funny and unsettling. It escalates into a dream and fantasy of fulfillment, but one where El has left her entire self behind — and leaves her hollowed out at the distance between herself and her ideal.
Back in her everyday reality, El receives an unexpected chance to embark on her modeling dream. It’s exciting, but El is forced to confront her insecurities and all the ways she doesn’t measure up. As El, actor Naomi Nelson plays both this excitement and the intense vulnerability it brings out with winning ease and honesty. She may not be the model she envisioned, but as she works with the photographer and confronts her deepest fears, she discovers what is beautiful about herself — and the confidence to show it.
Equal parts creative, clever and heartfelt, THE BUTTERFLY speaks to a time when ideas of self-love are more prominent in our culture and body acceptance and kindness are a louder part of the larger discourse. Yet we’re also bombarded with constantly shifting and distorted ideas of beauty, which often aim at making us palatable to the camera’s gaze on social media. The film stems from the personal experience of its production team, some of whom went through the ordeals of the modeling industry and came out of those experiences with a bruised sense of confidence and self-worth. But El’s journey reminds us that we can be empathetic to ourselves and question our notions of what and who is beautiful — we can shrug off inner programming that doesn’t serve us, embrace who we are and celebrate it for all the world to see.
