The Key was made from a short story written by Gabrielle Blumetti, a thirteen year old girl who wrote the story for a school English assignment. Little did she know that soon after, it would become a screenplay and be made into a short film with her playing the lead role!

The Key is the story of a girl who's living with her aunt because her father was gone (dead?) and her mother passed away from what I'm assuming was cancer. One morning, Alex (Gabrielle Blumetti), wakes up and finds a key stuck in her hair. She pulls it out, and becomes extremely curious about where it came from and what it's meant to unlock.

She begins her search by enlisting the help of her best friend, a boy named Derek (Max Ary). After paying a visit to Derek's uncle who's a locksmith and finding out that the key is actually an old skeleton key, they return to Alex's home and start to search around for what the key could possibly open. They finally find a small box in the attic that the key works in, and inside, they find a note that leads them on a quest to follow a path of discovery, with each step providing a new note with a new clue as to where to find the next clue until they finally reach their destination and solve the mystery of the key.

The key is a not only a touching film, but the mystery of the key and their quest to discover the secret actually pulls you in and keeps you interested in the story, and the characters as well are all likeable, easy to identify with and feel like real people.

The production quality of the film was excellent as well. The visuals, especially in the wooded areas are just stunning, it's well edited, perfectly paced and just the right length for the content of the story. The only small (really small) complaint I'd have about the production aspect of the film is that the narrations were a little too "in your face" as far as the sound was concerned. I'm guessing from the way it sounded that Gabrielle was sitting really close to the mic when she recorded those. It would have sounded better if she were sitting back a bit so it gave the narration more of an "in the room sitting next to you" effect rather than a sitting on top of the mic effect. Still, this is a tiny complaint at best and it didn't affect the story or my ability to enjoy it whatsoever. It's just something for director Jim Blumetti to maybe take note of for his future films.

I have to say, I was really surprised at what a wonderful and heartfelt film this was. Gabrielle Blumetti is a very talented writer, especially for someone her age. If she's capable of producing stories like this now, it'll be very interesting to see what she comes up with in the future, and with a film maker in the family to turn her stories into films, I'm sure we'll get the chance to.

If you'd like to find out more about this film, you can check out the 410 Garfield Films website at http://www.410garfieldfilms.com.