The Dish & the Spoon

The entire movie feels much like the opening - a long drive through a tunnel with a woman crying. Occasionally an amusing or artsy shot is added but they are not enough to redeem this exercise in boredom.

What little plot there is centers around the weekend (maybe) escapades of a woman whose husband slept with another woman. She finds a young man sleeping in a lighthouse and develops a quirky relationship with him. There appears to be no reason for many of their actions, particularly a scene in which she makes him a transvestite. Little is learned about the couple or their motivations. In fact, the name of the man is never revealed. The movie is best characterized by long takes of the actors homely faces.

The few moments of artistic interest, such as when the man excellently draws her face in the sand, do add something. The moments are too fleeting, however, to suffer the 90 minutes of agitation and boredom that this movie instills.

I wanted to like this picture (brave little independent film launches out into the big world at London Film Festival), and it has a striking opening sequence. Unfortunately, by the halfway point it started to feel laboured; by the end, fatally, the characters had become annoying rather than sympathetic, and the whole thing came across with an amateurish feeling.

It feels too long for its actual content: too many would-be-meaningful shots of driving, of landscape, of the camera looking at characters, of characters looking at each other, of 'oh-look-I-managed-to-catch-a-flock-of-birds-in-the-viewfinder' (this happens several times, and while it's a pretty composition and no doubt a challenging achievement, it doesn't really do anything for the film as a whole). And it needs a better script -- it sounded a lot of the time as if the characters were improvising their dialogue as they went along, and there is little coherent plot. The film manages to give the overall impression of someone's Film Studies degree project material expanded to feature length, not always successfully.

Perhaps the most frustrating scene is where the central pair, for no reason that ever becomes apparent, act out a scenario that involves the woman, dressed in man's clothing, performing a sexually aggressive pick-up on the young man, tricked out in make-up, a necklace and a padded bra -- like so much of the rest of the film, this scene doesn't go anywhere plot-wise, and I just got the impression that the director thought it would be a fun thing to get the actors to do. It's certainly confusing for the audience. (I was actually wondering at one point if we had been subjected to an artful piece of misdirection, and that the unfaithful spouse was actually being revealed as a partner in a lesbian relationship -- but apparently not.)

"The Dish and the Spoon" (again, why this title?) starts off with an interesting premise (and some jaw-dropping ranting on the part of Greta Gerwig), but gradually lost this viewer's engagement. This sort of free-flowing improvisational stuff really isn't in my line: your average B-movie would squeeze in six or seven times the plot and far more dialogue into two-thirds of the running time of this picture.

Apparently it's 'mumblecore', 'wacky', 'quirky'. It isn't me.

This movie was perhaps just a little bit too 'artsy' for my liking. Initially, I was intrigued by what I had read about the movie, hence I decided to give it a go. And now having seen it, I can honestly say that this movie was not meant for me.

The story, or what resembles a story, is taking place around two core characters; Rose (played by Greta Gerwig) who is struggling to deal with her husbands affair with a woman named Emma, and a quirky British teenager (played by Olly Alexander), who is running away from something. The two find comfort in each others company and help each other to get to where they are going.

It is a story that is character driven and also fueled by the passion of the characters. We are introduced to two somewhat offbeat characters and given the chance to ride along with them on their journey, and that is perhaps the centerpiece of the movie; the essence of the movie, if you will.

As for the story, well it wasn't really all that interesting to me, and it took ages for the movie to get from A to B, and had surprisingly little to tell in the time that it took to get there.

The strong side of the movie was the acting. There was a lot riding on the performances of Greta Gerwig and Olly Alexander, as they were the only ones on the screen about 90% of the time. And I will say that they did a good job in portraying their characters.

Another strong side of the movie was the cinematography. The movie was really nicely shot and edited, and had some really great images in it, and a lot of shots that needed no dialogue or explaining.

I found my interest starting to drift to other things a couple of times throughout the movie, because it clearly wasn't meant for me as an audience. I am sure there is an audience out there for this particular type of movie, and I am sure those people will enjoy this type of movie as well.

As modern American tiny-budget indie rom-coms go, this is sweet and charming, managing to avoid falling into most of the mumble-core traps and cliche's. There's something more successfully wistful and sad than usual in this tale of two mismatched and very quirky young people stumbling into each other's lives.

When we meet 20 something Rose, she's literally wailing and crying as she drives her car – seemingly without aim – after discovering her husband has been having an affair. Before long she meets a young, sweetly quiet English boy in his late teens, who came to America to meet up with a girl, and has now been cast adrift by her (maybe – there's a lovely question mark over all this character's stories. While there are scenes that are too precious, and moments where it feels like the film-maker and actors are working a bit too hard and self-consciously at being charmingly weird – moments where you can almost see the actors/director think "this will be a cool choice" - there's also a lot of humanity and quiet emotion in the performances by Greta Gerwig and Olly Alexander – creating characters who both seem caught on the edge of real emotional trouble -and in the muted, touching images with which Alison Bagnall frames them.

Yes, maybe we cut to migrating birds one too many times, or we're ahead of the supposed twist of a scene now and then. But it's the moments of fragile human complexity that feel unusual in any American film-making these days, large or small, and which ultimately won this a place in my heart.

Alison Bagnall brings her 2nd feature length film, The Dish & The Spoon, with shameless intimacy.

After discovering her husband has cheated on her, Rose (Greta Gerwig) goes on a beer-drinking rampage, pulling the young, mysterious vagabond (Olly Alexander) in on her plan for revenge against the bitch who put her in this position.

The two share an undeniable – often cute and occasionally awkward – on screen chemistry.

Their unique and intimate relationship develops in an interesting balance of sexual tension, bare emotions and twisted manipulation.

Bagnall sincerely seems to be an actor's director, where playfulness and experimentation is balanced with an emotional depth.

The film is sincere and reckless, letting the characters lead the narrative. Rose wants to scream, Rose will scream. Rose wants to cuddle, Rose will cuddle. Rose wants to steal, Rose will steal.

The characters really seem free to act how they want and feel in each moment rather than being pulled across a constructed story forcing them to go from point A to B. The characters do what they want, not what they're told. There is something about this movie that reflects real life and relationships in a way that is true and unhindered.

The Dish & The Spoon feels like a secret roller coaster ride that we get to experience with these two strangers as they grope for some sort of emotional connection and personal understanding over a few unlikely days.

It's a brave film that I'm glad I experienced and hope to see in theaters!