God of Love

“You can’t control who you love. You can’t control who loves you. You can’t control how it happens or when it happens or why it happens. You can’t control any of that stuff.” –God of Love, 2011

The 2011 Academy Award nominated short film, God of Love is centered behind a hopeless romantic man named Ray, who is love sick with a woman named Kelly who just so happens to love his fellow band mate and best friend, Fozzie. In the beginning, we watch Ray pray to an unspecified god for the first time to help Kelly view him as desirable. After a year of consistently praying for the same thing, the answer comes to the dart-wizard in the form of a love arrow. Reminiscent of a modern day cupid, Ray plots to make Kelly fall in love with him by stabbing her with an arrow designed to make the love interest carry strong feelings leaving them more susceptible to fall in love with the desiring person. After failing to make Kelly fall in with him, Ray resolves to pair up Kelly and Fozzie. By the story’s end, he restates the opening quote, which is provided above, and concludes that he is the god of love.

Other than the movie being so detailed, comedic, and insightful at just 19 minutes long, the quote above was what intrigued me most about the movie. It was a concept established from the beginning and tied the story together in the end. It’s reality. You can’t control who you love, and just what makes you love you've fallen for. All we feel we are in control of daily is completely irrelevant when considering the concept of love. More often, love makes us selfless. You see by the story’s end, Ray becomes completely selfless when he induces the relationship between Fozzie and Kelly.

Though his attempts were comical, it doesn't negate the fact that love stories are all based on this premise: the inability to control who you love. Often times, the conflict revolves around this-- The world not understanding what one feels and the two parties involved being the only two who understand. God of Love is a truly thoughtful short story. It vividly depicts this idea in black and white. You don’t need color to define what love is. As boundless as the feeling can be, the truth is, love just is what it is.