A Great Concept, Decently Realized
This is a good piece overall, and I'd certainly say it deserves some recognition. Despite starting as an exercise. Though at the same time, this does have the marks of a doodle-ish work and that in my mind prevents this from being all it could be.
The characters seem kinda sketchy. Now, you could chalk this up to "style" and provided its relatively smooth (which it is) I could respect that, but some of your fills (especially on the hair) leave a few spaces out. It looks lazy is all, and as an exercise it's just fine - but again, it's something you could work on.
My main complaint animation-wise however is the lip sync. You don't do much, but
what you did do needs work. If you can take a class or even look it up online, I think it'd be worthwhile to improve your skill at it.
Don't get discouraged though! This movie is absolutely not an exercise because the story is so well done. It's nothing new, but it was well told. (I haven't seen your other work, so I can't comment on improvement). And I must say that your use of gradients to give things a light tint was just amazing. (I assume those were just transparent gradients? Or did you use some more complex filter?)
The concept of this animation is good enough to justify more work on the animation, though this can certainly stand as is without a remake. I take this as a work that was done as an exercise, but shows your potential regardless. I'd love to see what you can do when you get in your game, so to speak. Lookin' forward to your next work! 4/8