Johan Wickholm’s Letters Of Love Is a Raw and Promising Debut

In its quietest moments, Letters Of Love feels like a confession slipped under a door, creased, vulnerable, and impossible to ignore. Johan Wickholm’s debut short isn't a grand narrative ambition. Instead, it leans inward, toward memory, regret, and the uneasy act of looking back at a life before it fractured.

The story centers on Peter, once a promising adolescent, now an adult caught in the undertow of trauma, addiction, and loss. This isn’t a plot-driven short so much as a psychological excavation.

As both director and performer, Johan Wickholm takes a considerable risk and largely pulls it off. His performance is raw without being indulgent, restrained yet emotionally legible. There’s a sincerity to his portrayal that feels earned rather than performed, suggesting a filmmaker unafraid to sit with discomfort. For a debut, that confidence is notable.

Visually, Letters Of Love shows a clear eye at work. The lighting is especially effective, carving mood out of shadow and silence, often doing more emotional heavy lifting than the dialogue itself. The film’s indie sensibility works in its favor here, embracing intimacy over polish.

That said, the film occasionally struggles to reconcile its emotional urgency with its physical setting. The action-heavy impulses of the narrative sometimes clash with the calm, almost postcard-like backdrop of Gibraltar, creating a tonal contradiction.

There are also growing pains in the pacing and sound design. Certain sequences linger longer than their emotional weight can sustain, while the audio mix occasionally distracts from otherwise compelling moments.

Yet what ultimately carries Letters Of Love is its clarity of vision. Wickholm knows what he wants to say, even if he’s still refining how to say it. The film is dense with feeling, restless with motion, and unafraid to be imperfect. And perhaps that’s fitting. A story about trauma and addiction shouldn’t feel too neat, too balanced, or too comfortable.

As debut shorts go, Letters Of Love isn’t just promising, it’s personal.