Amor to Love
2023 · 10m · USA
Directed by Ted Marsden
Tones: humorous, tender, whimsical
A construction worker scrambles to pull off an anniversary dinner with Taco Bell as the centerpiece. It's a Hi-8 dreamscape love letter to fast food and self-acceptance.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Anyone who sincerely positions Taco Bell as the love object of a short film has my attention. The Hi-8 dreamscape framing means it's either weirdly transcendent or hilariously not — both are useful.
A Hi-8 Taco Bell anniversary love letter is a register that requires absolute commitment to sincerity to avoid becoming a Tim & Eric pastiche, and Marsden's previous shorts suggest he can hold the line. Scrappy LA humanism with a fast-food sacrament — worth the risk.
Hi-8 dreamscape treating a Taco Bell anniversary dinner as sincere romance — when the format isn't doing irony work, the affection becomes weirdly real. The traffic-management opening that nobody listens to sets up the right working-class tenderness.
Reviews
With a charming performance by Diaz, along with Marsden's dreamscape Hi-8 world, comes a heartfelt letter to loving oneself