Directed by Jeff Rosenberg
Written by Laura Jacqmin, Jeff Rosenberg
Starring Aya Cash, William Jackson Harper, Sarah Bolger
Runtime: 1 hour 20 minutes
In theaters and on demand April 23

by Nikk Nelson, Cinematic Maniac, Staff Writer

For Amy

“As we sink deeper into the drink, the volume increases.
Nighttime resurrects fault lines. Silent wars rumble somewhere below.
The surfaces versus.
The surfaces versus.
The shoe is dropped, lungs explode.
Shards of words of a shattered voice.
And there’s still a hole where the phone was thrown.
It’s growing as we speak…” 

-Cursive, “The Casualty”, Domestica

“You can’t possibly think you’re coming to the wedding. You dumped me.”

“Yeah, I am. I’m in the wedding.”

“You’re barely in the wedding.”

“I’m King of the Ushers!”

In January, I separated from my wife of almost fifteen years. I honestly didn’t think about that at all when I agreed to review this film. And, goddammit, I wouldn’t have said anything if this movie hadn’t resonated with me so much. Originally, I saw Aya Cash and William Jackson Harper on a film poster and my lizard brain screamed, “It’s the love people! I want it all! Take of it!” My adoration for Aya Cash has been documented with MovieJawn previously in my review of Scare Me (2020). She was my favorite part of The Boys Season 2 and at this point I think I could watch her grocery shop and be riveted. Add to that, I’ve perhaps never identified more with a TV character than I have with William Jackson Harper’s Chidi Anagonye from The Good Place. I generally steer clear of ‘rom-coms’, especially what could easily be hipster, millennial, mumblecore ones but with these two at the helm, I couldn’t say no. And I wasn’t the least bit disappointed. What I found, in my opinion, is the first quietly great romantic comedy of my generation. Damn you, co-writers Laura Jacqmin and Jeff Rosenberg and director Jeff Rosenberg. You made me feel feelings.

There is a harrowing awkwardness to breaking up. That shift where the person who is most intimate to you all of a sudden becomes a stranger. I remember it from previous breakups, of course. I remember it hitting me, for example, with my ex-girlfriend in college, back when we still had answering machines, her leaving a message after we broke up, “Hey, it’s Michelle…” when, a thousand messages before were, “Hey, it’s me…” That is such a weird transition, when someone stops being ‘me’ to you and they know, almost instinctually, to stop it. This time around, the hardest thing seems to be having to, after being protective of a person for so long, figure out a way to, in a way, not care what happens to them anymore, all for the sake of protecting myself. There’s a thousand little ‘show and don’t tell’ moments in this film that perfectly capture these sentiments to the backdrop of an understated but absolutely beautiful score by Nick Sena. It sounds crazy but there were musical moments that reminded me of Stand By Me (1986). But that’s probably just another way of me saying that it resonated with something inside me that reaches down that deep and back that far. 

It’s been a really long time since a film has done that to me and for me. And it was right on time. I am very grateful for it. So, I can’t recommend this movie enough, especially if you’re newly wounded in a breakup. I hope it leaves you as, well, as hopeful as it left me. Last minute shout-outs to Tony Cavalero’s sweet and hilarious performance as Jayson and it’s always great to see one of my major childhood crushes from The Secret World of Alex Mack, Larisa Oleynik. I plan on seeking out Jeff Rosenberg’s other feature film starring Oleynik, Relative Obscurity (2007) in the very near future. Stick around for a very adorable mid-credits sequence. Oh, and scrunchies are back. Which is fun.