![]() “In the same way that people felt seen and heard with the film,” he continued, “I hope they feel understood reading the book - that they are not alone, that their life matters, and that this story needs to be told again and again, and you obviously can’t talk about it enough because it keeps happening.” McCormack has a simple explanation for why the film resonated so widely: “Kids are getting shot in schools and nothing has changed.” Interwoven are flashbacks of the family’s happy life and the devastating event that shattered it: As gunfire and screams intensify, Rose texts her last words to her mom and dad: “If anything happens I love you.” The short depicts Rose’s parents’ detachment and withdrawal from each another, their isolation and their memories triggered by mundane tasks or something as simple as a T-shirt. Participants would record themselves before and after watching the 12-minute short, trying not to cry. The hashtag “#ifanythinghappensiloveyou” became a TikTok challenge, racking up more than 31 million views on the social media platform in its first week. And once again, parents are left on the sidelines to mourn and to rebuild shattered lives as best they can. Once again, some politicians are begging for gun control with little hope of lasting change. Once again - as after the killings at Santa Fe and Marjory Stoneman Douglas high schools, Sandy Hook Elementary School and so many other campuses - the country is grieving boys and girls senselessly murdered. Last Tuesday, an 18-year-old gunman barged into a Texas elementary school and killed 19 children and two teachers in one of the deadliest school massacres in U.S. The film and forthcoming book became horrifically relevant again in recent days. “And this story is not not about the tragedy, but it’s also about her life and the story that she wants to tell, how she lived and what was meaningful to her, and I think that often gets lost in the news.” “Inexorably, so many times with these tragedies, the focal point becomes the tragedy itself,” McCormack said in a video interview last month. Because they never talk about how I lived. “Everyone talks about the day I died, which is a shame. This time there would be words, and they would be spoken by the girl who was lost. Instead of blacks and grays permeating the screen, they wanted the book painted in blues, greens and yellows celebrating a child’s life. The graphic novel the co-directors conceived would tell the same story very differently. The short, which won an Oscar for animated short in 2021, found its force in suggestive vignettes illustrated by Youngran Nho. Over 10 wordless minutes we realize their daughter has died in a school shooting. “If Anything Happens I Love You,” the film, opens on two parents sitting apart in the throes of an unnamed grief. But they did know they also wanted to turn it into a book. When Will McCormack and Michael Govier set out to write and direct a short animated film about a couple mourning their child, they had no idea it would become a viral hit and win an Academy Award.
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