Mia, Alex and Dean Make a Movie

Directed by Declan Smith

2025

The “All the world’s a stage” quote from 'little-known' Midlands playwright William Shakespeare opens up a new and quirky short from writer-director Declan Smith.

And never was it more relevant than in this Meta take on film, fiction and real life, which begins with an introduction to a trio of protagonists in a cafe - each who thinks they have MCE - or Main Character Energy.

They debate the connection between life and narrative conventions but after this brief chat, there’s a sudden burst of energy which leads to the three speaking directly to camera and addressing the audience with the promise “this is going to be unlike anything you’ve ever witnessed”.

Breaking the fourth wall, they begin to deconstruct the tropes of cinema language and even the camera operator gets involved as they clean the lens after the remnants of a rather large sneeze blurs the shot .

Playing with the format of film itself isn’t the newest of ideas - 1977’s Annie Hall having some of the most famous examples - but the three leads add so much warmth and kinetic chaos that I was captivated by all their efforts.

Given the 7-minute runtime, the director includes as many cinematic flourishes as possible. We get fade-outs, text on screen, black and white photography, whip pans and more. Each one adds further vitality to the short’s pace and I thoroughly enjoyed the acknowledgement by the characters of each movie technique as it happens.

The nods don’t stop there either as the film leaps genres too. A trip into a fantasy world is perfectly colour graded to match the Twilight films with an appropriate (perhaps Harry Potter-esque too) orchestral symphony mixed in to acknowledge the influences.

The cinematography is solid and rich with detail, and the close-ups focus on the faces of each person allowing us to engage with their individual stories at the start before becoming more frantic as the zaniness of the story ramp up.

As they continue to jump from genre to genre and location to location we get further movie influences including European arthouse and even a freaky body-swap moment and a hint of a musical too.

Full of laughs and smart references Mia, Alex and Dean Make a Movie really is a great short film. From the look and the witty spoofing of movies to the gentle mocking and back-and-forth quips of the leads, the film runs at break-neck pace to include an abundance of cinematic references that viewers will lap up.

The chemistry between the three - Georgie McGuigan (Mia), Megan Dunnico (Alex) and Giuseppe Manzione (Dean) is really fantastic. And with a canny script, a knowledge of cinematic conventions and a wry tongue-in-cheek tone, I highly recommend checking out this wonderful short film. It's full of technical skill and an enthusiastic spirit, meaning audiences won’t be able to resist its wacky and humorous charms.

★★★★★

5 / 5

Michael Sales

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