A woman struggles with a relationship on her birthday when an event changes her life forever.


CLEAR DAY is used with permission from Caitlin Woods. Learn more at https://caitlin-woods.com.


It's Anna's 30th birthday, and she's due to celebrate it with her boyfriend Gabe, who has invited Anna's parents to join them for the milestone as a surprise. But there's a big problem: Anna hasn't told her parents about Gabe, much less mentioned that they're living together.

But then a world-changing event occurs not far from the home they share, one that will recontextualize not just their dilemma, but the entire global state of affairs. It also plunges Anna into a terrible loss, one that changes her feelings and thoughts about Gabe.

Directed by Caitlin Woods and written by Isabel Schnall, who also plays the lead role of Anna, this engrossing dramatic short begins with a warm, leisurely set of images intimate and domestic in tenor, ending with details of a couple sleeping in bed. The brief sequence -- along with the gently naturalistic, lived-in visuals -- set up what's at stake when the couple comes into conflict later in the film, when Anna finds out Gabe invited her parents to her birthday dinner later that day as an unexpected and unwelcome surprise.

The pair debate it over and then go on with their day, which seems to be a lovely but ordinary one. But then news comes in of a terrible event. Viewers will recognize it immediately as a history-changing one, but its impact is immediate and personal for Anna. The event also changes the trajectory of the film, transforming it from a seemingly intimate chamber drama about a relationship being tested in one way to an almost different film altogether. The relationship is still being tested, but much more acutely, as perhaps a casualty of a tragic historical event that changed the world for everyone.

The writing and craftsmanship of the film are skilled in balancing the ordinariness of Gabe and Anna's dilemma with the uncertainty and disbelief of a historical event happening in real-time, its aftereffects rippling out to places as far-off as Anna and Gabe's home. Actors Schnall and Skyler Bible have the immediacy of a loving couple facing the first real test of their relationship, but they also movingly portray their grief when they realize just how they've been affected by the tragedy unfolding in their lives. Anna, in her shock, responds with harshness and blame, in a way that might just end her relationship -- though it's sadly understandable why she reacted in the way she did.

Compelling and heart-wrenching to watch, the narrative ends with something of a cliffhanger, at least concerning the film's first half, which sets up a relationship challenge for Anna and Gabe. The film's second half obliterates the first dramatic question while setting up an even more devastating one for the couple. But the most powerful aspect of CLEAR DAY is its evocation of a beautifully ordinary life, full of ups and downs until tragedy comes along to rupture it. 9/11 is beginning to recede into historical memory, but for those who remember, this short captures something of the shock as it unfurled, creating a sense of before and after. The stakes may be higher for Anna, but we share with her the knowledge that the world is irrevocably altered -- and that normal days will no longer quite exist in the same way ever again.