"Bear" is an award-winning (Palme-d'Or-nominated) Australian 8.5-minute (without credits) short film from 5 years ago written and directed by famous actor Nash Edgerton, brother of Joel, and he also plays the main character. The film needs a couple minutes to get interesting when a woman is angry with her boyfriend being a useless bum and apparently even having forgotten her birthday. But has he really? Actually, he is quite a prankster and prepared a surprise for his significant other and it sure is gonna become a surprising day for everybody involved. The contents in this little movie are very much dramatic from start to finish and yet this film gave off a somewhat comedic note that comes with everything dramatic at the same time. Very weird, yet very well-done. From the moment on we see Edgerton in the bear costume for the very first time, it is a compelling watch. Still I had a bit of a problem with the character putting on the head at the end. In this context it made no real sense and felt only as means for including the final twist. This is also why I cannot give this film an 8/10 even if I would like to. Not for very young audiences though. Everybody else should check it out, I highly recommend the watch.

Bear sees a Jack's girlfriend storming out of the house to go on her bike ride, clearly angry about something although he seems oblivious to it. The second she is gone though, he heads out to get her surprise ready – but Jack always does have a habit of taking things too far.This short film is very well made technically, with nice interiors which fill the first third of the film and then very good exterior shots to make up the rest. The gag is a simple one and to be honest if you know anything about the film at all then you will know roughly where it is going – particularly the final "joke" of the film. I say "joke" not because the film isn't funny but more to highlight that it is not a silly short but rather a cringe-inducing one with big consequences. It is nicely delivered though and the seriousness of the incidents and the very well delivered stunts add a sense of real darkness to the comedic events, a tone that works well. That said, the film doesn't have too much outside of this and it is essentially one joke, and even at 10 minutes it is probably longer than it needed to be.Nash Edgerton writes, directs and leads the film well and looking at his resume on IMDb he is clearly someone who likes to keep busy, with a large number of blockbuster films where he does stunt work, interspersed with short films and other works where he does other roles, such as this one. While Bear is not strong enough to make a big impression outside of the impact of the punch-line, Edgerton is clearly worth a look to see his many other outputs.

Suggestive Spoilers Jack awakes to find his partner Emelie is annoyed at him . Jack being a nice guy knows it's her birthday and wants to go out of his way to give her a birthday surprise she won't forgetWatching this I thought perhaps it could have done with a bit more backstory . When Jack and Emelie awake it's pretty obvious they're not on talking terms and I found myself questioning why this may be , but due to a quite unexpected plot turn just over halfway through it's obvious the cold front between the two characters is down to Emelie thinking that her boyfriend has forgotten her birthday . As it turns out he hasn't It's not often a see a short film featuring stunt work and this alone makes BEAR somewhat memorable and once you see this stunt sequence you expect the story to end there and then . But no , Nash Edgerton keeps the story running for another couple of minutes where the story takes yet another unexpected twist that reminded of the lyrics of a song by The The called Song Without An Ending and is black comedy at its most shocking and you won't feel like laughing much . The fact the titles feature a nice happy song with jangling guitars just adds to the ending . I think we might be hearing a lot more from Nash Edgerton in the future