Divorced couple Robert (John Shea) and Emily (Lea Thompson) drink, eat and reignite old sparks in this intimate, honest exploration of relationship dynamics, regret and the enduring messiness of love.
The majority of the film, evocative of “My Dinner With André,” is simply a conversation between the two over the course of an evening out. Emily, a successful novelist in town to promote her book, hasn’t seen Robert, a struggling musician, in years; she’s been living with her wealthy second husband, he’s been playing cabaret nights at a tiny bistro and bedding too-young women. But the news of their daughter’s engagement, which Robert views with disdain as overly conventional, gives them an excuse to sit down together.
Thompson and Shea both dig into their intelligent, flawed characters with zeal. And director Jim Hemphill’s naturalistic dialogue and direction is so unfussy — and, at times, humanly awkward — as to feel a bit like a documentary. Call it mumblecore for grown-ups (i.e., minus the mumbling).