Walter is new in town. Grace is leaving town. After sparking an untimely connection, two lonely artists spend a weekend together diving a bit too deep.
“Overall though, for a first-time feature filmmaker, Bashore is fairly stylistically constrained and his film is better for it. The twitchy, always-kinetic camera is a difficult impulse to overcome, but cinematographer Rich Tran is patient and doesn’t ever give into that temptation. It’s difficult to imagine the picture with a different style. (Neither is the picture plagued by the cursed temptation to overscore, another dreadful trait that has leached its way into indie filmmaking.) The second shot of the film, an extended long shot in front of the bridge, exemplifies Bashore’s compositional patience — a rarity in a directorial debut let alone an editorial one, as Bashore pulled quadruple duty along with writing and producing. The shot holds long enough and from enough of a distance to feel Walter’s loneliness as he calls friends in desperation on the phone. The Yasujirō Ozu-esque use of architectural pillow shots complements this cinematographic patience and, importantly, adds a meaningful declaration of the importance of the Michigan setting. “This is us,” the shots whisper while wearing a beanie and holding a cup of Madcap dark roast.
I dare say this is the best Grand Rapids film to date?”
