In the comedy “Almost Love,” romance springs from a love of one’s class. The movie follows a group of 30-something New Yorkers who support one another through various stages of relationships. Ensconced in their close-knit circle, they chatter, deeming which partners are perfect and which ones deserve the boot. But the one subject these chatty characters never touch is class, despite their obvious obsession with it.
Adam (Scott Evans) and Marklin (Augustus Prew) are at the center of this intertwined crew. They have been together for five years, but their sense of intimacy has started to deteriorate and their friends aren’t holding up any better. One, Elizabeth (Kate Walsh), seems to have the perfect relationship with her husband, until infidelity shakes its foundations. Another, Haley (Zoe Chao) is confused in her role as a college counselor when a particularly dependent student develops a crush on her.
As these characters stumble and joke their way toward their inevitably happy endings, they flirt with shallowness. The film’s writer and director Mike Doyle does too. It’s particularly shown in the character of Cammy (Michelle Buteau), who has found a guy she likes enough to stay home with, despite her concerns he’s not totally Mr. Right. In short, her beau, Henry (Colin Donnell), is homeless. Cammy’s fears about how his housing reflects on her own stability are uncomfortably played for laughs, which only underscores the movie’s confused attitude toward social class.
“Almost Love” teases you with glimpses into Manhattanite pocketbooks with references to exorbitant rents or entitled, wealthy clients. But each time money enters the story, the film dances around the issue, treating the characters’ investments in one another as solely emotional. When Elizabeth rejects a flirtation with a handsome ice cream man, she complains that he only wants to talk about his boring job. The movie never follows up and never leaves room to consider that these genial people with nice apartments and Ivy League diplomas might have an obnoxious sense of who is in their league.
The aimless characters in “Almost Love” like to talk through their feelings, their aspirations, their disappointments, but there is little substance in their epiphanies, and the comedy is too low key to make up for its absence. In this comedy of romantic manners, class solidarity is the love that dares not speak its name.
Almost Love
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. Rent or buy on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
