This film resonated for me quite strongly. It told a very believable, well-titled story in a very sleek manner. We see an intense young man as he begins to survive a break up. Very shortly afterwards, he is shocked to be invited to his ex's wedding. Along the way to the wedding, he meets a high school girl who is many years his junior, and this peculiar relationship becomes an important part of his healing.
The film opens with a terrific title sequence where we follow the progression of voicemail messages that form the demise of his relationship. Most films make heavy use of external answering machines, since they are common in the US, where many films are shot and/or set. The machines afford the characters the opportunity to hear the message from anywhere in the environment. However, I laughed right out loud as our hero struggled to leave the 'appropriate' voicemail response, erasing and re-recording it over and over again, all the while assailed by that annoying prompt voice in the telephone. I had performed this very same dance that very afternoon using my own voice mailbox.
Some reviewers have disliked the use of video footage to provide backstory. I completely disagree and state that they have missed the point of its use. Our hero watches the home movies as part of his masochistic but entirely normal grieving process, perhaps trying to see what went wrong was there a clue? etc. However the function of the use of the videos for the audience is to allow us to see the personality of our hero when it was intact prior to the break up. We see flowers, songs, hats - all things that represent the joy that has been shed from his personality. It is barely possible to see the same person anymore. He never smiles.
I enjoyed the way the story and the characters' responses were presented very simply for us to observe. This is the way human life is lived it takes time to respond to what we hear, and there are no rules, or clever phrases stored for use. There are no wrong feelings, and no time frame during which we are obliged to recover from shock and suffering. We cannot always control the people around us, and this tempts us to feel impotent.
Actress Laura Harris, playing the ex girlfriend , bears an astonishing resemblance in essence and vocal tone to the late Marilyn Monroe. As the teenaged girl, actress Eryn Collins plays with a rich simplicity and openness that is often hard to dig out of young performers, who can take years to trust that 'less is more'. As our hero, actor Tygh Runyan is an excellent choice. He is handsome and rugged but not in an alienating and polished Hollywood way. It is easy for us to follow his story as though it were our own.
