Gavin Vitale | A Pair / 2025

betrayal

by Douglas Messerli

 

Gavin Vitale (screenwriter and director) A Pair / 2025 [5.21 minutes]

 

This slight short film of only a little more than five minutes packs a great deal of emotional weight despite its lack of character and plot.

     All we know is that for the first time in a long while, perhaps over a year, Finn (Djanne Martinez) encounters an old friend, Lucas (Bran Sullivan) on his college campus, and is amazed by the encounter.

     Almost immediately, Lucas puts up a wall of words, describing his impossible voyage by bus to get there, but is soon interrupted by Finn, who demands to know to where he had disappeared. Clearly the two were fast friends, in fact, we soon discover, gay friends when Lucas suddenly went missing.

     He now explains that his parents, long threatening, sent him off to a Catholic school. We can only suppose that they got a whiff of his relationship with Finn or a least sensed their boy was possibly gay.

     Yet, every time Lucas begins to seriously explain the situation, he purposely creates a wall of words to hide behind, afraid perhaps of restating his feelings for Finn. He finally explains that a necklace he has been compulsively touching throughout is the other of a set of earrings that Finn had brought to school one day, and when he dropped it, Lucas stole it away as a token of their friendship or relationship.

     This would be more meaningful if we knew how deeply in love the two were; but even though they now kiss, we can’t be sure whether it was actually Lucas’ leaving that ended their relationship or Finn’s reluctance, since he has been carrying a flower from the first frame on, obviously as a token to another lover who may be of either gender.

      All we know is that he no longer is interested in Lucas, and demands that he no longer try to “reach out to him again,” moving off on his way to see his new lover. From the tone of the call to the person he’s about to meet, we suspect it is a female, but that’s only a guess through the flower and warning, sounding somewhat homophobic, he delivers to his former friend or lover. The flower, meanwhile, has been crushed in their kiss.

      The pair remains broken, like the earring which Lucas has attempted to return to Finn, Lucas, now alone, also crushed as he breaks into muffled tears. Poor Lucas has been betrayed by both his parents and his would-be lover.

      It appears that this film has simply been posted to YouTube without any distribution since it’s not listed in IMDb or Letterboxd, so if it disappears from YouTube it will perhaps be forgotten. I also cannot be sure of the release date, since I only can find the date when it was posted to YouTube.

 

Los Angeles, June 28, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (June 2025).