From Omeleto.
Two co-workers confess feelings.
YOU DON’T SAY is used with permission from Jeffrey D. Simon. Learn more at https://thebarn.la.
Herbert and Lilith are two co-workers at a publishing house who have known each other for nearly years. They are madly in love with one another, but their shyness means their relationship hasn’t progressed beyond a fond friendship on the surface.
While spending an afternoon together, they wander into a magical, musical bookstore, giving them the nudge to confess their love. But a new problem arises: what genre is best for honesty?
Directed by Jeffrey D. Simon from a script and story by A.J. Freeman and Sam Balzac (who also composed the lyrics and music, respectively), this cozy and whimsical short musical is about how two people reveal their attraction and affection to one another. It’s a moment of vulnerability, one that this particular twosome has danced around for some time. But that reckoning for Lilith and Herbert comes in a magical bookstore that spins its customers into musical numbers that reflect both the books they pick up and their inner feelings, and it gives the film a chance to turn the last fumbling steps of Lilith’s and Herbert’s dance to coupledom into a clever, playful delight.
The film sits in the same domain as a growing body of post-modern musicals, where the focus is not just on glamorous escapism or a heightened evocation of inner life, but an exploration of genre and storytelling itself, often asking questions of how media shapes our lives and expression. Part of the fun is that Lilith and Herbert can’t quite find the right story to confess their mutual affection for one another. Instead, they find guidance or inspiration in the various books they pick up as they buy time browsing the bookshelves, trying to work up the nerve to confess.
But often the dictates of each genre they stumble into — western, film noir, sci-fi and more — don’t give them a moment or framework to speak to one another clearly. They need a script to follow as a way to guide them out of their shyness, making for some enjoyable riffs on classic film genres. But the story always gets away from them, often ending in a dust-up that forces them into narrative conventions, not their feelings.
As Lilith and Herbert, actors and composers A.J. Freeman and Sam Balzac have the agility to traipse through different styles of acting and music with great skill. And more importantly, they evoke just how much they enjoy one another as a pair, even if they’re too shy to say it outright. But as the styles and tropes begin to pile up, the potential couple seems to spin further and further from one another — until one of them finally shuts the book, puts it down and realizes that their own words are perfect for what they have to say.
It makes for a final moment that is sweet and simple, and it brings what has been a charming, eccentrically joyful musical romp to a sincere and tender ending — though stay to the end for a fun little wink and hint at what’s to come. In the end, YOU DON’T SAY leaves us with a bit of old-fashioned movie musical stardust, and though its sense of stylistic play is a modern riff on the genre, it stays true to the essential delight it brings to fans and audiences.
