A young woman, Emma, played by Laura Barrett, is preparing to move house with her workaholic fiancé when a hipster old flame and former band-mate, Gabriel, played by Jose Miguel Contreras, shows up.
Following two acclaimed documentaries, Army of One and When We Were Boys, Toronto director Sarah Goodman eases into drama with this sweet, anecdotal black-and-white film, set in summer in Toronto's Little Portugal.
A young woman, Emma (Laura Barrett), is preparing to move house with her workaholic fiancé (Alex Tindal) when a hipster old flame and former band-mate, Gabriel (Jose Miguel Contreras), shows up.
Both Barrett and Contreras come across as likeable and intelligently sincere, but the script, like the characters, has emotional commitment problems.
Amplifying, if ultimately diffusing, the central love-triangle story are parallel tales of a younger woman (Hallie Switzer) who is undergoing a similar romantic dilemma, while an elderly Portuguese couple sit on their porch and provide a stilted choral commentary.
Snippets of conversation from passersby and acoustic music, both performed onscreen and on the soundtrack, form the dreamy connecting tissue.
Liam Lacey