Review: “Love, Repeat”
“Love, Repeat” is a film written by and starring Bill Connington. Connington plays James, a middle-aged man struggling to date after the divorce of him and his ex-wife, Barbra (Leenya Rideout). With the help of friends and family, all of which are going through their own relationship trials, he realizes that he still loves her and sets off on a mission to get her back. The resulting film is one that, while full of very beautiful imagery and some interesting ideas fails to completely deliver.
At the top of the film we received a lot of exposition, done in a way that was meant to be a fun quick intro so that we could get on with the story, but I found myself wanting to be shown some of this rather than just being told all of it up front. Exposition in this way, isn’t inherently a bad idea, and it worked in a couple places, but if not done in an interesting way it feels like you’re just being fed information.
The way in which this couple gets divorced doesn’t really feel believable. He gets her a gift she doesn’t want and she gets upset that he never listens to her. It appears to escalate out of nowhere and left me feeling like if something as simple as that can break up such a supposedly strong bond, then maybe they shouldn’t be together. The issues of not understanding one another and feeling not heard are legitimate reasons for divorce but I feel that we needed more build up or evidence that this relationship was struggling. That way it’s clear the gift isn’t the reason, simply the ignition.
I struggled to really invest myself in Connington as James overall. He played up the out-there socially awkward aspects of the character somehow both too subtly and too over the top. James wasn’t big enough in his awkwardness to feel incredibly comedic but didn’t open up past some of those surface personalities for me to feel like I knew him or could root for him.
All of the side characters felt thrown in like they just needed something to split up the scenes between the main character and his ex-wife. I lost track of most of them, got them mixed up, and really didn’t care much about any of their stories. They appeared to be there for comic relief but without any solid action to ground them, I just felt lost.
There is, however, and exception to this. The main character’s parents also get divorced part way through the film and I found myself incredibly invested in their story. Why would someone at his dad’s age decide to get divorced? What does a recently divorced person at that age do or think about? I could have watched an entire movie that was just these two dealing with the emotional weight of that decision and what it means for their kids. There’s a moment where the dad (Stu Richel) clutches his phone and his football struggling with whether or not to call his ex-wife (Carole Monferdini) as she’s also seen struggling with the decision to call. No dialogue is spoken and it’s beautiful.
That becomes a running theme of this movie. The moments without dialogue are beautifully shot and actually quite emotional. It’s clear that these filmmakers have a deep love for New York, as we practically get a slideshow of one part of the city to another. There’s actually a pretty powerful moment towards the end of the film that just has the main character walking through the city dealing with yet another rejection from his ex-wife. It’s simple, it conveys all of the emotion needed without spelling it out for us, and it’s done with some beautiful scenery.
So, while many of the performances felt one-note and not particularly interesting, it’s clear that these actors are capable of delivering engaging performances and were simply given a script in need of a few rewrites and unclear direction. Perhaps these ideas can be explored in future scripts, but this one isn’t one I will return to.
“Love, Repeat” was directed by Shelagh Carter and written by Bill Connington
Starring: Connington as James, Leenya Rideout, Chalia La Tour, Marcus Ho, Nandita Shenoy, Vivia Font, Carole Monferdini,Stu Richel, Leon Andrew Joseph, Elizabeth Pojanowski,Donovan Mitchell, Rich Liu, Sarah MeganThomas, Ryan J. Haddad, Cadden Jones, Chris McGinn, Maxwell Purushothaman, MaeveSeto.
With original Music by Deirdre Broderick
Cinematography by Daniel Brothers
Edited by Kate Rose Itzkowitz