a powerful film. and a great message. a black utopia about genetic and about choices. and nothing more. except the minimalist style. the reaction about it becomes different at each new view. because the story itself has many levels. because it is a film about fears. and about the desire to be accepted. and the line between desire and duty to yourself. it is a warning and, in same measure, it is the portrait of the essence of humankind. to be the expected one. to give the right answer. to have the good place. so, a film who see you. for atmosphere. and for the questions. about the ways and about the decisions.

I had seen some emotive reactions to this short film and, although I try not to read the views of others until after I have seen a short for myself, I did assume this short film would be rather impacting in what it delivers. The plot sees a future where genetic perfection is the goal and those without are driven out. A homosexual couple live in this world and one of them considers genetically modifying himself to be able to become heterosexual and thus accepted.The short film opens in such a way that it is really made clear where the film is coming from; instead of being a thoughtful world it is one of obvious "baddies" and "goodies" and this is presented in the opening credits which are as blunt as they are well edited. This opening made me think I was in for more of the same but, for some reason, from this point it almost seems afraid to speak above a whisper about anything. Director Hurley delivers the film in a way that reminded me of those people who talk deliberately low and quietly in a meeting – making people lean in or assume that what is being said must be heavy in wisdom and depth – it feels this way because this is the style of the film, very deliberately obtuse and subdued with very small moments scattered throughout. The goal I guess was to be intelligence and not spell things out but the result to me was that the film felt a bit too full of itself, like it couldn't be bothered to make the effort. This is in the pacing, the content but also the cinematography, which in some ways looks really good, but in others seems like it has taken the east route of being folded in, dusty and dingy in the visuals. Performances are limited – and, in fairness to the cast, I think this occurred because the director didn't share the characters enough with them, so they match the deliberately folded-in style and have little else to work with. Politically there is an interesting idea in here about genetics and whether it is a good thing to have the choices or not, but such themes are lost in a film which is obtuse and subdued to the point where it hardly does anything outside of the opening credits.

In a Dystopian future the jackboot rules . Science has cracked the genetic code and everyone has to abide by natural selection . A man who is gay decides that the best way forward for him is to agree to be heterosexual via a genetically modified virus Catching this on the Short Of The Week website director/writer Connor Hurley confesses that there's not enough gay themed science fiction out so attempts to rectify this with THE NATURALIST . Two points are worth bringing up here . Obviously he's never seen DOCTOR WHO from 2005 to the present that feels the need to shoehorn gay characters from Captain Jack Harkness to lesbian lizard women . Secondly there's no need for this to be science fiction in anyway . It could be a simple story of " man who is having a sexual relationship with another man finds himself having sexual attractions to a woman " but this would probably be far too simple so Connor has added a little twist by painting a somewhat fascist future where people are genetically modified in to being heterosexual . Ignoring the science involved ( I'm afraid I'll be ranting about that in a moment ) all this seems like a gimmick . Some people may defend the film on doing a new twist on a story that's been done before on the theme of how far would you go to confirm but to me it still feels like a gimmick . There's no scientific evidence that there's such a thing as a " gay " gene and evidence seems to indicate being gay might be down to environment . Take for example the ancient Greeks or those hard nut prisoners serving long sentences Rant AlertWhat I disliked deeply about THE NATURALIST is the science and politics involved . It equates people who recognise natural selection as being somehow fascist and while it'd be a terrible mistake replacing the least worst form of government ie democracy with technocracy it doesn't follow that all proponents of biology and eugenics are goosestepping right wingers . HG Wells and Aldous Huxley were supporters of eugenics and neither of them could be called figures of the right . The Nazis were rabid supporters of genetics and " racial hygiene " and " the strong surviving " but this is not natural selection . Natural selection is when a species survives due to it being able to adapt to its environment . It's doesn't necessarily mean it's stronger or superior to another species - it just means it's able to adapt . If you want to read Mien Kampf ( I don't recommend it I only got to page 17 ) you might find that Hitler doesn't mention Darwin by name and Hitler never mentions Darwin in any of his speeches so to credit Charles Darwin with the holocaust is like blaming Karl Marx for Lysenkoism . The fact is the Nazis were inspired - as in all dictatorships - by power and not by science which is based entirely on truth This might be bad enough but what really got my temper up is the title montage where we get oppressive images overlayed with a voice over showing this GM future . I'll give it credit for saying it's effective for illustrating what this future fictional world may be like . The problem is this voice over is obviously based upon Professor Richard Dawkins the most slandered and misquoted public figure of the 21st Century . Dawkins is of course constantly being accused of being racist and having other right wing agendas . Far from it for me to defend the world's most prominent anti-theist his critics have either never read his works or seen any of his interviews or they haven't understood a single word he's said . I've no idea if he thinks homosexuality is down to nature or nurture but I do know he is more than happy to share a platform with Peter Tatchell so that tells you all you have to know Yeah okay I'm taking things a bit too seriously here and if I disliked this I should be consistent and dislike every piece of science fiction that isn't accurate . Well that's QUATERMASS , BLAKES 7 and DOCTOR WHO in my bad books then but to be honest THE NATURALIST sinks due to its politics and I could be justified in giving it one star on this basis but I'm a fair man and the technical points of this short film are more than adequate so I'll give it 4/10