Almost Love, a comedy / drama about a group of friends in New York City who are navigating love and romance in the smartphone era is not quite what I expected.
Written and directed by Mike Doyle, my reasons for wanting to see this one include how such an intriguing premise would be executed and some of the key actors whose works I’ve enjoyed in the past. Namely Michelle Buteau, Kate Walsh and Patricia Clarkson. Additionally, as a fan of Chris ‘Captain America’ Evans, I felt it time to satisfy myself curiosity about the talents of his sibling Scott Evans.
There are indeed some amusing moments in Doyles movie and good performances too, especially by Evans, Walsh, and Clarkson. What didn’t prove too great is unfortunately the story edit. As Almost Love follows the evolution of four romantic relationships; for me personally, only one of them proved adequately interesting. The other stories didn’t appeal so much because of their cliched reality and also because I found elements of the execution annoying.
The thing that confirmed my ‘it’s not so great’ feelings about Doyle’s movie is the ending. I did not in any way buy how two of the love stories were concluded. Part of this may be because I don’t agree with at least one of the decisions but even still, it seemed as though Doyle was running out of time and decided to just wrap things up whether it made sense or not. In this way, perhaps the meaning behind the film’s title ‘Almost Love’ is really about couples deliberately choosing to settle. If that were true, I’d still have preferred for all the relationships to be more interesting and engaging. Part of the problem is that four is simply too many relationship stories to tell well in just one hour thirty for minutes.
Besides the beautiful song that plays before the credits role, another highlight of Doyles’s film is the perfect delivery of the line: ‘He’s eating dairy? Poor thing.’
If you’re especially curious, perhaps give it a chance.
Happy Film Loving
G
