A fine-ish romance
Good casting and acting bolster movie, but this rom-com isn’t quite The One
There’s no single formula for a successful romantic comedy, but the basic outline generally involves a likable protagonist searching for The One. And if we run with that metaphor, then The Broken Hearts Gallery is an OK time-waster, a decent conversationalist and an adequate companion for a night out. But it’s not The One.
It has a lot going for it, though. Let’s start with the high-octane performance delivered by Geraldine Viswanathan (TV’S Miracle Workers) as Lucy, a New York art gallery employee whose latest breakup plunges her into romantic despair. A heroine in the “charmingly clueless” mould, she mistakes passerby Nick (Stranger Things’ Dacre Montgomery) for her Uber driver, badgering him until he decides it’s easier to ferry her home than argue.
Nick is busy fixing up an old hotel, and on their second chance meeting he shows her around, and she decides to take over a corner of it to create the Broken Heart Gallery — I can’t begin to express my frustration at the disconnect between Hearts in the title and Heart within the film. Anyway, it’s a shrine to failed relationships, featuring a memento from each former beloved. Nick, easygoing to a fault, decides to let her have her way.
The Broken Hearts Gallery is the first feature from writer-director Natalie Krinsky. Kudos to her casting, which is refreshingly colour-blind for the leads, and features some wonderful older stars — Sheila Mccarthy, and is that Bernadette Peters? — in solid supporting roles. And nice work on shooting a New York story in Toronto without it being obvious. It’s amazing what a few street scenes and some judicial establishing shots can do.
So what’s stopping viewers from living happily ever after? Maybe it’s the too-perfect, billiard-ball precision of the screenplay — characters crash into one other, spout a few witticisms, then ricochet apart until the next meticulously timed setup.
And without giving too much away, something about the film’s conclusion struck me as tonedeaf to modern romantic realities. It wasn’t enough to make me want to break up with the movie, but it did leave a slightly sour taste. I’d recommend Broken Hearts, conditionally, but I also need it to know we won’t be exclusive.