BROKEN HEARTS GALLERY, THE
(director/writer: Natalie Krinsky; cinematographer: Alar Kivilo; editor: Shawn Paper; music: Genevieve Vincent; cast: Geraldine Viswanathan (Lucy Gulliver), Dacre Montgomery (Nick), Utkarsh Ambudkar (Max Vora), Molly Gordon (Amanda), Phillipa Soo (Nadine), Suki Waterhouse (Chloe), Sheila McCarthy (Cheryl Gulliver), Bernadette Peters (Eva Woolf), Nathan Dales (Jeff), Ego Nwodim (Harvard), Megan Ferguson (Randy), Nikki Duval (Willhimina), Emma Hunter (NY Woman), Tattiawna Jones (Doctor date), Arturo Castro (Nick’s business partner), Megan Ferguson (Randy); Runtime: 108; MPAA Rating: PG-13; producer: David Gross; A Sony Tristar release; 2020)
“Your usual banal rom/com film.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Natalie Krinsky is a television writer in her film debut in this thin “chick film”, meant to go cute. It’s supposedly a comedy with a lot of broken hearts, and plays as your usual banal rom/com film.
In the opening it has high school student Lucy Gulliver (Geraldine Viswanathan) telling her best friends, Amanda (Molly Gordon) and Nadine (Phillipa Soo), about keeping a “broken hearts box,” with souvenirs of her failed relationships.
We follow this trio 8 years later as they are living together in NYC. Also staying there is Amanda’s mute, law school, boyfriend, Jeff (Nathan Dales). Lucy hooks up with her art gallery co-worker Max (Utkarsh Ambudkar). Also at the gallery is Max’s cynical friend Harvard (Ego Nwodim) and the bitchy boss of the hipster gallery Eva Woolf (Bernadette Peters).
To check off the box for meeting on the cute, Lucy loses both her boyfriend and her job at the gallery on the same day. In a fog and a tipsy, she goes into a car driven by Nick (Dacre Montgomery), thinking it’s the Uber she called for.
Well, to make a familiar rom/com short, Nick is trying to build a hotel in NYC with a partner, who inspires his now girlfriend Lucy to create her own art gallery at a Brooklyn location.
To take your mind off the heavy things going on there’s comic relief and support from the lead’s loyal girlfriends. It works as a familiar and safe rom/com, and adds likable characters and a pleasant story. It’s something you can always catch on TV, and if you miss you can say who cares.
REVIEWED ON 9/19/2020 GRADE: C