God of Love is a 2010 short film (18 minutes) directed by, written by, and starring Luke Matheny.
Matheny plays Raymond Goodfellow, a lounge singer in a band who also has exceptional aim. He combines those two unrelated talents in his act: while singing Frank Sinatra-style crooners, Raymond simultaneously throws darts at targets hanging on the side wall. Ray is in love with Kelly, the drummer in his band. Kelly for her part is oblivious to this and is instead in love with Fozzie, the guitarist, who says he is not interested and wouldn't make a move on someone his friend likes anyway.
Ray has been praying to God every night, asking that Kelly return his affections. One day, he receives a mysterious package that appears to contain the answer to his prayers: a set of "Love Dart 3000" darts. The darts, which were sent from the Olympus Corporation, promise that whoever is hit by them will be immediately attracted to the first person they see, and will remain so for precisely six hours. If the love is meant to be, it will last, and if it isn't, the effect will dissipate. After successfully testing the darts on a random attractive woman that he matches with Frank the bassist, Ray uses the darts on Kelly—with surprising results.
Tropes:
- Bait-and-Switch: After the six-hour mark for Frank and Angela's date, Angela falls silent, gets up, and seems to be preparing to leave him behind... but to Ray's surprise, she happily takes Frank along with her, proving their love is meant to be.
- Bittersweet Ending: Ray has to give up his love for Kelly so that she can be with Fozzie, who she's meant to end up with, and the end of the film shows that his work is a pretty lonely journey. But he's successfully matched many couples up, is serious about his work, and did show maturity and wisdom in letting Kelly go.
- Character Development: Ray starts off by being pretty selfish about his feelings for Kelly, but in the end, he chooses to give her a lifetime of happiness with Fozzie — and makes sure to give love interests to all the women (and one man) he hit with darts earlier.
- Chekhov's Skill: Raymond's spectacular aim starts off as just an entertainment trick, but it pays off when he's throwing love darts at romantic targets. It also implies that he was meant to be Cupid all along.
- Cupid's Arrow: At first, darts. Later, after Ray assumes his duties as Cupid, he is sent the standard bow and arrow set, straight from Olympus.
- Deadpan Snarker: Ray and Fozzie, complete with flat monotone.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The whole short is in black and white.
- Everything Sounds Sexier in French: Ray throws a dart at a girl to make her fall in love with him, just because she has a cute French accent.
- Foreshadowing: Fozzie knows quite a bit more about Kelly than Ray does, having to correct Ray on what kind of decor Kelly would like, what kind of food she would enjoy for dinner, and her favorite plays and operas. This hints that he does have feelings for her that he's concealing.
- Hollywood Board Games: Ray is so irresistible, that his opponent in the Scrabble tournament gets Distracted by the Sexy and decides to propose to him by using the tiles — she spells "DO ME". The fact that she's initially too horny to pay proper attention is shown when she first spells "DOME", which confuses Ray.
- How We Got Here: Starts with Ray motorcycling down a country road, musing about how you can't control whom you fall in love with. Then jumps back three months to start the story.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Ray's aim goes from impressive to absurd when Kelly throws a heart-shaped chocolate box in the air, and Ray hits it square in the middle in the air with a dart. The ending reveals that there's a supernatural reason why Ray's aim is so good.
- It's All About Me: Ray prays every night that Kelly will love him back, and he refuses to just respect her feelings and accept that she won't ever love him. Moreover, when he does have her attention, it's revealed that despite his obsession, he doesn't even know her interests or tastes, but that doesn't stop him from continuing to scheme over how to keep her around forever. Fortunately, he grows out of it.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: After realizing that Fozzie does in fact have feelings for Kelly, which he's been concealing, Ray throws a dart at him, and Kelly and Fozzie fall in love.
- Love Goddess: So Ray proclaims himself in the last line, anyway, although he's really Cupid The Matchmaker (Aphrodite was the goddess of love).
- Love Triangle: Ray is obsessed with Kelly, but she is indifferent to him and only has eyes for Fozzie, Ray's best friend. Fozzie claims he has zero interest in Kelly and would never give her a chance out of respect for Ray, but Ray eventually realizes that Fozzie does secretly love her back.
- The Matchmaker: Ray ends up being a divine matchmaker.
- Meaningful Echo: In the How We Got Here opening scene, Ray says "You can't control who you fall in love with." At the end, having taken the job of Cupid, Ray says "You can't control who you fall in love with, but I can." And while the earlier voiceover seems to be normal musings on the confusing nature of love, it's revealed at the end that he's actually explaining to the audience that the reason love doesn't make sense, and you can't control your or anyone else's feelings, is because he's responsible for said feelings... and he can be an idiot sometimes.
- Meaningful Name: Raymond Goodfellow, an obvious allusion to Puck
, indicating that Ray may not be all he seems. - Off-into-the-Distance Ending: Ends with Ray, having accepted his new role as Cupid, cycling away.
- Opposites Attract: To test the darts, Ray sets a prissy, talkative, beautiful woman up with his quiet bandmate. Though the relationship seems doomed to fail, they stay together after the six hours and end up a happy couple.
- The Problem with Pen Island: When the darts fail to work on Kelly, a despondent Ray winds up jabbing a bunch of women (and one man!), acquiring a whole harem following him around. Somehow he winds up at a Scrabble tournament. The woman he's playing takes three tiles off her row and shows Ray the remaining four, which spell "DOME". When a confused Ray says "Dome?", the woman hurriedly separates her tiles so they read "DO ME".
- Secret Test of Character: The love darts end up being one from "Olympus"; he gets a proper Cupid's bow and arrow after he selflessly puts Fozzie and Kelly's happiness above his own.
- Shout-Out: When Ray's telling Fozzie how he'd like the dining room decorated."A candlelit Amish barn. You know, like Witness.
- Single-Target Sexuality: After Fozzie points out that there are a million other girls that Ray could pursue in the city, he goes on a spree with the darts, but nobody else interests him other than Kelly.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Fozzie is very, very, very insistent that he absolutely, totally, does not have any feelings for Kelly whatsoever.
- Title Drop: At the end, Ray reveals that his musings on love are fact and not philosophy, and that he knows the answers because "I am the God of Love."
- Urban Fantasy: A new Cupid, shooting people with love darts and love arrows, in 21st century New York.
- Whip Pan: Used to transition between scenes on Ray and Kelly's romantic date — walking along the Battery, ice skating, walking through Central Park.
- You Can't Fight Fate: When Fozzie expresses ethical reservations about using the love darts, Ray says that it was fated, and that he was meant to use the darts. And as the ending proves, he was right.
