Hello Lonesome (2010)
An appropriate title--three couples independently form out of mutual loneliness. Unlike some movies with parallel plots (like "Crash") this one doesn't make the three separate worlds meet. What unifies them is their similar striving for companionship.
And what makes them different is partly what makes the movie terrific. For one older guy with money and a fun if whacky sense of playfulness in his life, all he can manage is a superficial evening of partying with a girl he had met almost a year earlier. For a young guy with an obsession with sports betting the growing tragic needs of his girlfriend adds a needed human dimension to his thin life. The third man is a bit of an effete introvert and he finds comfort visiting the older widow next door, with uncertain sexual intentions.
This is the bare bones, and there are turns and surprises that have to remain surprises so I say no more. Except that the movie makes each situation real and emotionally ripe without sentimentalism (which took some serious restraint in at least one of the three stories, as you'll see). Director, writer, and producer Adam Reid deftly takes a formulaic structure and makes a vivid, living, rather touching movie. The three stories on their own are probably not as complex or original as you might hope, but as a trio they form something much larger than the parts.
And Reid gets the actors to completely inhabit their characters. Necessarily, no one gets a majority role here--at most they have a portion of a third of the screen time--but each of the pairs works superbly. (One of the "couples" is mostly about the man, so there are in essence five main actors.) You can't quite call it ensemble acting since the five never meet all together (this gives nothing away--you don't expect or need this), but in each smaller aspect of the film the acting is tight and sensitive and genuine.
See this. I remember being a little bored at first, getting to know the group, and this might be because there are so many and it takes longer than usual to fall in with them individually. So give it time to start to gel and take a couple of life turns. It's a lovely independent movie.
An appropriate title--three couples independently form out of mutual loneliness. Unlike some movies with parallel plots (like "Crash") this one doesn't make the three separate worlds meet. What unifies them is their similar striving for companionship.
And what makes them different is partly what makes the movie terrific. For one older guy with money and a fun if whacky sense of playfulness in his life, all he can manage is a superficial evening of partying with a girl he had met almost a year earlier. For a young guy with an obsession with sports betting the growing tragic needs of his girlfriend adds a needed human dimension to his thin life. The third man is a bit of an effete introvert and he finds comfort visiting the older widow next door, with uncertain sexual intentions.
This is the bare bones, and there are turns and surprises that have to remain surprises so I say no more. Except that the movie makes each situation real and emotionally ripe without sentimentalism (which took some serious restraint in at least one of the three stories, as you'll see). Director, writer, and producer Adam Reid deftly takes a formulaic structure and makes a vivid, living, rather touching movie. The three stories on their own are probably not as complex or original as you might hope, but as a trio they form something much larger than the parts.
And Reid gets the actors to completely inhabit their characters. Necessarily, no one gets a majority role here--at most they have a portion of a third of the screen time--but each of the pairs works superbly. (One of the "couples" is mostly about the man, so there are in essence five main actors.) You can't quite call it ensemble acting since the five never meet all together (this gives nothing away--you don't expect or need this), but in each smaller aspect of the film the acting is tight and sensitive and genuine.
See this. I remember being a little bored at first, getting to know the group, and this might be because there are so many and it takes longer than usual to fall in with them individually. So give it time to start to gel and take a couple of life turns. It's a lovely independent movie.