"Sometimes, it only takes a few days for your life to change. For me, it took seven..."
7 Days is a 2021 Irish Short Film written and directed by Greg Young.
School friends Callum (Greg Young) and Ray (Jake Hyland) have some kind of Dark Secret that involves their friend Rosie (Dana Lee Al Qattan). They have to fool the police, dispose of a sword, and Rosie has to remain hidden.
The film was part of the Deadly Numbers
anthology, along with Disembodied Hitman, before getting released as a standalone.
Not to be confused with the TV series about time travel, the 2007 Yaoi manga or the 2013 horror video game. Or the film 7 for that matter.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: It's implied Rosie has a rough home life.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: We can probably blame the alcohol for Ray's Accidental Murder of Rosie, and the decision to hide the body.
- Arc Number: Seven of course! The whole story takes place over seven days, and with one scene per day. It represents the number seven in Deadly Numbers.
- Arc Words: "We did the right thing..."
- Back to Front: It turns out that the seven days are being told in reverse order.
- Binge Montage: There's one showing Callum sniffing coke while Ray and Rosie play with swords.
- Bittersweet Ending: Rosie is dead and Ray is unaccounted for. Callum will likely face all sorts of horrible consequences for lying, but he's at least going to clear his conscience by owning up.
- Bloody Hallucinations of Guilt: Three friends, Ray, Callum, and Rosie, hang out in the woods drinking when Ray accidentally kills Rosie. Ray forces Callum to help him dump the body and lie to the police to cover it all up. Later on, Callum at one point hallucinates that he's got blood on his hands.
- Blue Is Calm: Callum is the more sympathetic of the two boys, and he wears blue.
- Book Ends: The film starts and ends with Callum's "it only takes a few days for your life to change forever..."
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Drink and do drugs in the forest, and you'll accidentally kill your friend.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Ray and Callum drop a lot of 'fuck's in a particularly tense scene.
- Conviction by Contradiction: What Ray fears; when he mistakenly tells the police their alibi was Tuesday, instead of the planned Wednesday, he's sure they'll be found out.
- Cool Sword: For no apparent reason, Ray has a sword that he plays with in the party in the woods. This is because one of Greg Young's friends owns an impressive sword collection, and he lent some to the film.
- Cute Bruiser: Rosie gets a scene where she playfully whacks Ray with a sword, and it's portrayed as very endearing."You're lucky that's all I gave ya."
- Cry into Chest: Rosie comforts Callum while he cries this way.
- Dead All Along: Rosie has been dead all along.
- Death by Falling Over: Rosie dies by falling and hitting her head off a rock.
- Disposing of a Body: Callum and Ray leave Rosie's body lying in the woods to make it look as though she died alone.
- Dramatic Irony: The Reveal is paralleled with a scene of Rosie excitedly telling Callum she got a scholarship, hopeful for her future.
- Good-Times Montage: Played for irony, where clips of the friends laughing and having fun are intercut with the darker moments.
- Happy Dance: Rosie dances around happily in the woods.
- Hope Spot: The Reveal that Rosie is a ghost is paralleled with a talk between the friends about a scholarship, giving them hope.
- Kill the Cutie: Rosie is the most playful and endearing of the friend group, so of course she's the one that dies.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Quoth Ray - "the days are just blending together".
- Manly Tears: Callum does a bit of crying in this film.
- Mood Whiplash: A playful scene of the gang having fun whiplashes when Rosie gets accidentally killed.
- My God, What Have I Done?: If you go by the first scene, and his planned fate in the script, it seems remorse did eventually catch up with Ray.
- Mysterious Waif: Rosie hides out in Callum's room to deliver ominous warnings.
- Once More, with Clarity: The events are shown in the proper order for the end sequence.
- "Pan Up to the Sky" Ending: The very last shot of the film is one of the sky.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Ray is the aggressive, impulsive Red. Callum is the empathic, responsible Blue.
- Spanner in the Works: Ray forgets the planned day of the alibi, and doesn't dispose of the sword.
- A Storm Is Coming: The first scene has Callum outside under a gloomy sky, indicating things are going to get worse.
- Toxic Friend Influence: Ray is the one who persuades Callum to hide the body.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Rosie herself offers Callum to spar with Ray, ultimately bringing about her own death.
- Weather Dissonance: The Dark Secret happens on a bright, sunny day.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Ray disappears from the story once The Reveal happens. The first scene between Callum and Rosie has them saying "I can't believe he's gone", implying he has died too or run away.
- Why Did You Make Me Hit You?: Ray punches Callum during an argument, and it's forgotten about.
- With Friends Like These...: Ray's first reaction to accidentally killing his friend is not to call an ambulance in the hope she could be saved, but to hide the body out of fear of his own future. He also hits Callum when he's told that he messed up.
