The New Twenty

Chris Mason Johnson’s ensemble drama could’ve been just another earnest time capsule about friends in their late twenties; what saves it from devolving into mere mumblecore is a broader-than-average outlook. Life trajectories send the quintet in disparate directions, among them Ben (Fickes), who takes to his couch with a bottle of Lubriderm, and Andrew (Locke), who’s in an equally wankworthy situation at Morgan Stanley. Unlike this genre’s usual shtick, the film includes something rarely seen onscreen: close friendships between gay and straight men. And though the camera may be overly fond of pore-counting close-ups, cinematographer David Tumblety is smart enough to draw it back and show the bigger picture, too, with twinkly sunsets over East Village water towers.