Review Of Michael Rosenbaum's Short Film: "Ghild"

Written by Craig Byrne - KryptonSite Webmaster

On Monday night, I was fortune enough to get to see Ghild, a short film that was written by Michael Rosenbaum, produced by Michael Rosenbaum, and starring Michael Rosenbaum. You know, that guy who we liked as Lex Luthor so much. Michael created and wrote Ghild with his friends David Yarovesky (who also directed) and Rob Danson (who also produced some sweet original music) after realizing that a friend of theirs - with an adult body and a child-like face - looked like a giant child, or, as they put it, a Ghild. That rhymes with "child," by the way. It's not "Guild."

What Rosenbaum and his collaborators came up with was around 13 minutes of a very unique experience. From the start, the color palette, the sets, and the music set the tone for the kind of thing you might get if Tim Burton and Pee-wee Herman merged and had their minds explode together onto a film screen.

Michael plays Brauly Gullivan, an eight year old who spends most of his time in his room with his drawings instead of outside with the normal regular sized children, who constantly play ball outside his window. I mean this in the nicest way, but part of me suspects that Michael wrote this all just for an excuse to play a kid for a few days.

Jolie Vanier and No Ordinary Family's Jimmy Bennett play Brauly's smaller-sized parents. Somehow, even though these actors are in their teens, the makeup artists of Ghild really did make Michael look like he was younger than them.

Brauly gets a visit from an older ghild played by Harland Williams who tells him that people like them won't live as long as other kids, so he has to enjoy life - and spend time with the other children - while he can.

There are several fun moments, and like I said, Rosenbaum seems to excel at acting like a giant child. I also hope this is the first of many times we'll see Rosenbaum writing and producing his own work - it looks great, and if you'll forgive me for gossiping, Michael looked extremely proud of this piece, as he should be. So many of us are used to seeing Michael as Lex so aside from blooper reels and such, we haven't been exposed to how talentedly funny Michael Rosenbaum really is. Ghild shows it all off.

Ghild will be playing at film festivals very soon, and as soon as that information is available, I'll post it up on the site. You can also read more about it on their official Facebook page. If you're a fan of Michael's - even though this is as far from Lex Luthor as you can get - you'll like this a lot.