Almost Love (Amazon) Is A Celebration Of Diverse Relationships

Almost Love(Amazon  Prime  Video)

Starring  Scott Evans ,Augustus Prew , Michelle Buteau            Michelle Buteau  Colin Donnell , Zoe Chao 

Directed by  Mike Doyle

Rating: ***(3 stars)

 There  is  a reason why that elusive  feeling called love was created.  So that movies can be made about people falling, or  rising, in love.That’s why.

Almost Love has a woozy, slightly tipsy  endearing feel to it.The heart is  constantly in  the  right place as we   are taken into the  love  lives  of a  bunch  of New Yorkers whose togetherness  is  threatened  by ennui. What else can  it be? Why  is Adam and Marklin’s 5-year relationship suddenly being  questioned?

Marklin is  an influencer who takes pictures of his food before eating.He is somewhere  lost in his  own  posturing. Adam paints pictures which are sold with someone else’s signature at the bottom righthand  side of  the canvas.They are both not quite the right fit in their  social space. But do they want  or need a  change in their relationship status?

 This  gay relationship serves  up some  illuminating  glimpses  into  how two people remain relevant to one  another  without bending backwards  to please all  the time.

This is a landscape brimming with provocative situations.The  size-XX Michelle Buteau plays  a woman in  a  stagnant  relationship with a  homeless and  titanically tactless  chap Henry(Colin  Donwell) who , to be frank, deserves to be on  the streets.After  oral sex with his gf he comments adversely on the taste in his mouth.  She  naturally tells the homeless  jerk to get lost.

There is a potential  independent film here which remains stranded in a sort of  mid-stride  crisis  in the narrative.

 I loved  the way  the debutant director celebrates  love without inhibitions and  curbs. These are  a bunch  of  carefree people following  their hearts.Kate Walsh is delightfully bubble-bound  as a woman who thinks she’s in a blissful marriage.Her  conversations with Adam over his appropriated  paintings are  lipsmackingly  droll.

During these  times  of  severe crisis their buoyancy  may seem somewhat  misplace.  But the  New Yorkers  who  inhabit  writer-director Mike Doyle’s  first film never  fail to evoke  a feeling of  warmth  and tenderness even in their most self-serving moments.

My most favourite  moment in this mildly memorable  rom-com  involves a  40-something teacher Haley(Zoe Chao)  whose almost-18  student shows  up at her door  with a cake pretending it is  his  18^th  birthday ,  and threatens to kill himself by putting  his head in her oven when she refuses to make out with him.

 Love plus quirk is  always a winning combination. And  to watch two gay men look so effortlessly compatible  together made this  winsome  comedy  a  cheerful experience  during these times  of dark thoughts.