Film

As far as films go, grief is the new black (e.g., Reservation Road, Things We Lost in the Fire, Gone Baby Gone—heck, even The Final Season). Everyone’s wearing it, and often on their sleeves. That’s certainly the case with this slight indie about two people who find each other in their separate suffering. Jose (Verástegui) works as a chef for his brother Manny (Perez), but we learn in flashbacks that he was a rising soccer star. How did Jose get from soccer balls to sauté pans? Once screenwriters Monteverde and Patrick Million have teased us with a mystery, they get down to some actual plot.

Tightly wound Manny fires waitress Nina (Blanchard) when she shows up late. But we know, because we’ve been clubbed with the “woman agonizing over pregnancy test” bit, that she’s got a good reason. Sensitive Jose follows her, and the two spend a day together, during which they do a lot of soul searching and speechifying (Jose asks, “How was it dealing with your dad’s death?” like a cut-rate therapist). The trauma that ruined his soccer career is revealed in an annoyingly slow narrative striptease.

Despite adequate actors, the characters are all so broadly drawn that it’s hard to get involved in their emotional lives. If you’re going to work the grief angle, the audience has to want to cry along with the characters.