Save Yourself

This film is not a traditional romance, but it definitely fills a special niche within the genre. If you enjoy witty banter and simple yet effective character development within a realistic plot, you'll enjoy this film.

I'd like to see what Allen Gardner can do with a bigger budget.

Save Yourself is another intelligent, well-acted charmer from writer/director/star Allen C. Gardner. Sit back, relax and enjoy the insights. Especially since it's on Amazon Prime - no excuse not to check it out.

As I continue down an Allen C. Gardner rabbit hole, here, in his sixth writing effort (on his way to make the film that put him on my streaming radar, the pretty fine Cold Feet) he takes it back to square one, if you will, of his first film . . . Act One: keeping it simple and to the point with a small cast and not to many set ups to keep down the budget. That, however, in no way diminishes the film is well-shot and directed.

In this throwback to the Miramax/Fox Searchlight '90s, we have a simple, yet effective character study about Jason: an actor coming to grips with his own maturity. The catalyst of his personal growth is the no B. S Amy (Kelsey Gunn): a burnt-out A&R record executive.

After meeting at a house party via Jason's lame, called-out pick-up by Amy, each come to examine their place in the arts and the hardships that face both actors and musicians. If you've struggled in either profession, you'll relate to the characters and the story.

Films like this, where the conversation is very real and seems mostly ad-libbed, often don't rate very well, but I find them to be far more enjoyable than many of the big Hollywood flicks. As I watched this, I could easily put myself in the place of either of the main characters. Kept me entertained through the entire film, as I think it would anyone who's ever been in a relationship.

This is a deceptively simple film: basically just a long conversation. But the characters are well fleshed-out and the actors manage somehow to deliver their lines as if they're not lines. The scenarios are almost painfully realistic, utterly without romantic silver-lining storytelling; if you've got at least two decades under your belt, you'll have lived many of them yourself.

The direction is just razor-sharp, entirely free of big dramatic flourishes. As the interlocutors banter and fence, the depth of the subjects they're broaching is telegraphed in the briefest breaking of eye contact, the smallest alteration of vocal tone. By the end of the film you know these people intimately, as they've come to know each other.

It's worth watching just to marvel at its documentary feel, but you'll come away with some powerful insights into your own past as well. An amazing feat of "little" filmmaking.