The sweet Argentine romance “Sidewalls’’ is a tip of the hat to “Manhattan.’’ Like Woody Allen’s film, it begins with a meditation on a cityscape — in this case, that of Buenos Aires — and later shows the two central characters, Martin and Mariana, separately watching and crying over “Manhattan.’’
Martin, a Web designer who lives in a tiny apartment, is getting over a breakup: His girlfriend went to New Jersey to visit her parents and never returned. Mariana, who designs shop windows but wants to be an architect, also is mourning the end of an affair — she calls it “35,040 hours with the wrong person.’’
Both are neurotic: He’s agorapho-bic, and she has a fear of elevators. They’re obviously meant for each other, but while their lives frequently cross, they never connect as they deal with loneliness and their phobias.
“Sidewalls’’ is the feature debut of writer-director Gustavo Taretto, and is an extension of his 2005 short film of the same name. Pilar López de Ayala and Javier Drolas deliver believable performances as, respectively, Mariana and Martin. (Cinephiles will remember her from the art-house hits “In the City of Sylvia’’ and “The Strange Case of Angelica,’’ both of which had runs here.)
Leandro Martinez’s eye-pleasing cinematography complements Taretto’s literate script, although the Hollywood ending is jarring.