Sassy, stylish rom-com hits the spot
The Broken Hearts Gallery
(M, 109 mins)
Directed by Natalie Krinsky Reviewed by James Croot ★★★ 1⁄ 2
Twenty-something New York art gallery assistant Lucy Gulliver (Geraldine Viswanathan) lives in a Littlemermaid-esque cave of souvenirs.
For the past eight years, she has collected memorabilia from all her relationships that have gone wrong.
Rubber ducks, retainers and rock concert stubs litter her bedroom. Her flatmates started out thinking it is quirky and cute, now they believe she may have jumped from simply sentimental to fullmental and is essentially hoarding.
However, finally dating a grown-upman – coffee-table book owning, self-catering co-worker Max (Utkarsh Ambudkar) – Lucy feels she might be entering a new chapter of her life. That is, until a night of very public horror results in her losing him, her job and a fair amount of dignity.
Lucy is so distraught, she mistakes passer-by Nick’s (Dacre Montgomery) car for her Uber, pouring out herwoes and berating him for a lack ofmints as he drives her home. ‘‘I came to New York to open a gallery and I can’t even hold down a job as an assistant,’’ she wails.
The pair accidentally encounter each other again when Nick has to stage an intervention after Lucy tries to give Max some of his stuff back – in a crowded restaurant. And that’s when he also shows her the project he’s been working on – the Chloe Hotel.
For the past five years, he’s poured every cent into turning a former Ymcainto a boutique hotel, but now he desperately needs extra finance, or his dream will die.
It’s a space that gives Lucy inspiration – why not use a piece of the in-progress lobby to create a memorial to the ruins left behind when love crumbles?
Starting with a curated selection of her ephemera, Lucy starts to build the exhibition which, when word spreads, begins to attract a cult following.
Now, if they can just turn that interest into away of helping Nick complete his hotel.
Former Gossip Girl writer Natalie Krinsky’s directorial debut is a sassy, stylish rom-com that slightly undoes all its good work with a safe, predictable denouement.
It’s a tale filled with zingers, feels and some genuine twists, as Lucy’s real reason for her memento-gathering is revealed.
Yes, Brokenhearts hits all the typical touchstones of the genre: a parade of current pop-hits, a drunken karaoke scene and multiple misunderstandings, but there’s a crispness, emotional depth and verve to the script that lifts it above the bog-standard Hollywood fare.
However, its real ace is Viswanathan. Previously best known for high-school comedy Blockers and haranguing Hugh Jackman in Bad Education, here the Australian actress delivers a star-making turn with her easy charisma, comedic timing and vulnerability.
The chemistry with fellow Aussie Montgomery ( Stranger Things) is palpable and the pair light up the screen, without it feeling forced.
So despite Broken Hearts’ eventual and disappointingly inevitable pile-on ofmotivational messaging and what essentially amounts to succumbing to Hollywood peer pressure for a feel-good ending, there’s a lot to like about this effervescent and sometimes emotionally surprising rom-com, most of all, its luminous lead.