Fireflies in the Dusk

Love knows not distance…” in Jonathan Hammond’s comedic short Fireflies in the Dusk, love knows not time. Charlotte is a Modern-young/Victorian-old woman living with her mother, Edith, in the late 1800s. Edith is forcing her to marry the caustic Cecil, yet Charlotte has been passing back-and-forth love letters with Zachary. Thanks to a mysterious desk, Zachary, who lives in 2025, can communicate with Charlotte in the past. The two find their colloquial turns of phrase charming and tight.

When the pressure to marry mounts, Charlotte is able to transport herself to Zachary’s time by crawling through her desk. Refusing to be outsmarted, Cecil follows her, hoping to win over his arranged betrothed.

“…passing back-and-forth [through time] love letters with Zachary.”

Written by Director Jonathan Hammond and Ryan Roach, Fireflies in the Dusk is a delightfully silly short film that features a head-on collision between the clichés and stereotypes of the Victorian and Modern eras. It also helps that in both eras, we are so simple-minded to believe that time travel actually exists…because it does.

I mentioned silly and Hammond and Roach’s short is undoubtedly that. It first pays homage to love and the fight to find it, and then it takes a very unexpected and wonderful dark turn.

To make this work, the Hammond cast goes for it—no holding back, no pulling punches. They dive right in to bring seriousness and believability to an unbelievable story.

Fireflies in the Dusk is a time-hopping rom-com that flirts with genre tropes before flipping the table with sinister delight. It’s as if Jane Austen dropped acid and binged Rick and Morty. Hammond’s cast commits fully to the bit, and the result is a period piece with modern bite.