Rob Munday

Winner of a Jury Award (for Best Narrative Short) at SXSW in 2015, Michael Mohan’s Pink Grapefruit sees the writer/director take a “typical relationship story” and transform into a short with a distinct atmosphere by shooting it like a Horror movie.

A film about that natural instinct to compare your life to those around you, Mohan was inspired to create his story after finding out that his wedding had motivated several of his guests to make life-changing decisions.

“We had a very emotional ceremony” the director reveals, “It was the most intense and amazing moment of my life. A few days later, we learned that three of the couples who had come to the wedding broke up on the ride home. They couldn’t ever see themselves saying what my wife and I said to each other. On the flipside, a different couple got engaged on the ride home. And two other couples are pretty certain that our wedding night was the night they got pregnant (one of which with twins)”.

“I think there are a lot of movies to be made out of this core concept”

“I think as we evolve from young adulthood into normal adulthood, it’s only natural to measure our happiness and success by comparing it to those around us”, Mohan adds. “And this can have a tangible impact on our lives. I think there are a lot of movies to be made out of this core concept, but with Pink Grapefruit, I distilled it down into the simplest possible form”.

Centred around a married couple who bring their single friends out to Palm Springs in the hope of getting them together, Mohan admits he’d be “scared out of my mind” if he found himself in the situation his two main characters face.

With this perspective on such an encounter, it’s easy to see why the director decided to shake things up a bit by injecting some Horror tropes into his romantic tale. Putting to use some atmospheric sound design and voyeuristic cinematography, Mohan was looking to add “a tangible sense of dread” into his short and he really succeeds.

The story unfolding before your eyes may be a sweet one, but due to the inventive production Pink Grapefruit has you on edge throughout. It makes for an unusual viewing experience, with your mind somewhat challenged by the contrast between narrative and craft and whether it works for you, or not, there’s no denying it’s an inventive approach.

And here at Short of the Week, we salute that.