By Will Barber Taylor

Held for a Moment portrays the struggle that a married couple goes through, after a heartbreaking event. The story is set in an affluent suburb and is told through the eyes of a young woman, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Post traumatic stress resulting from a still birth is an issue that affects an estimated 4.2 million women in the UK. This is a horrible problem that has blighted the lives of so many people yet is so often ignored by the media and film in particular.

This is why Held For A Moment is such an important film – because it tackles a subject matter which has changed the lives of so many. Director and co-writer Edward Japp and co writers Antonia Desplat and Jordan Waller pool their talents to create a work of art that is not only powerful but will be sure to deeply resonant with whoever watches it. The script allows the raw emotion brought to the screen by actors Antonia Desplat and Liam McMahon to be all the more powerful; their performances are further heightened by Japp’s excellent direction.

Antonia Desplat’s performance as Alice is stunning. Desplat brings a sense of inner melancholy to all of her scenes and she fully understands how to play Alice’s inner depression and loss. Desplat’s acting is superb at balancing the various emotional states that Alice goes through throughout the film.

Held For A Moment is not only an important film because of the message that it tells but also because it is an engaging and emotionally motivated work of art. It is sure to not only inform whoever watches it but to also allow them to have a fraction of the feeling that so many women go through when they experience a still birth. It is a film that has to be seen and deserves as much praise as possible.