In an age where the film industry thrives on the so-called ‘high-concept’ plot, we tend to forget that sometimes, it’s not the most complicated of plots that make the most memorable movies.  The power of a simple story doesn’t seem so effective when even our finest directors are drawn to 3-D and CGI.  Yet when we compiled this week’s Watch This Weekend list, we recognized just how great basic storytelling can be.  From a romantic comedy concerning two friends and a baby to a movie documentary of a musician, we’re reminded of how great characters and a straight forward plot can really be the the best ingredients for creating a great movie.

Limited Theatrical Release

Friends with Kids
Cast: Adam Scott, Jennifer Westfeldt, Maya Rudolph, Chris Dowd, Kristin Wiig, Jon Hamm
Director: Jennifer Westfeldt

In Jennifer Westfeldt’s directorial debut, Friends with Kids, we’re reminded of why Westfeldt’s work in Kissing Jessica Stein back in 2001 was so effective. Granted, her newest movie is not a completely original idea. Westfeldt plays Julie, a woman that agrees to have a child with her best friend Jason, played by Adam Scott. We’ve seen various versions of this story: two people who are not romantically involved trying to raise a baby, i.e. Life as We Know It or Object of My Affection. There’s even a reunion of the Bridesmaids cast attached as secondary characters. Although the film follows a generally basic Hollywood romantic comedy structure, what makes Westfeldt’s straightforward comedy work is its knowing attention to detail.

Westfeldt intimately knows the social scene in New York City, and she identifies that strange transition when upscale, middle class Manhattanites move into the family life of Brooklyn. When Jason and Julie witness their close friends having children, they also witness the deterioration of romance between the couples. Hoping to dodge the difficulties having a child can impose on married life, Jason and Julie start to believe that having a child with each other is the perfect solution. Of course, as is the case with the Hollywood rom com formula, such a solution will not be without conflict as Julie and Jason’s feelings become complicated once they each pursue romantic relationships.

Westfeldt has a sharp observational eye when it comes to the dynamics between friends and how they each choose to live their lives. While the main story is between Jason and Julie, the best parts of the film exist in the scene where they’re interacting with the other couple friends. Westfeldt understands how people compare and contrast their lives to others and how, ultimately, doing so can deeply affect certain friendships. Although the movie’s last act feels like a bit of a patchwork ending, invented to simply prolong an ending that the audience already sees coming, Scott, the strongest performer in the film, delivers a heartfelt speech that seems clichéd but is so simple and heartfelt, it will pluck at your heartstrings.

Video on Demand

Kevin
Director: Jay Duplass

Jay Duplass’s modest 37-minute documentary, Kevin, will remind moviegoers of how effective simple, quiet storytelling can be.  There are no bells or whistles with Kevin Gant’s true-life story.  It’s the simple, moving portrait of an artist that has lost his way and finds his way back to inspiration.

In many ways, the documentary is as much about Duplass as Gant.  Duplass is in the background, a secondary narrator threading together the story of how Gant’s music in Austin once touched him as a film student in the 1990s.  In 1995, just as it seemed Gant was rising in the music scene, he suddenly disappeared.  Never forgetting the impact that Gant’s music had on him, Duplass reached out to Gant in 2009 to find out what happened to him. When we first meet Gant, he comes across as an overly philosophical man with many perfectly-worded phrases but no specific or deep answers about his past.  That could have been how Gant first appeared when Duplass started interviewing him.  In an emotionally-honest scene, Gant talks about meditating and mentions the violent beating he endured at the hands of his cousin and his cousin’s friends.  He then stops, seems surprised by his words, looks to the camera and says, “so anyway, you just opened that door for me there.”

It’s an overwhelmingly touching short documentary.  Once Gant opens up about what drove him away from the music scene, we see his frustrated life as a UPS employee, struggling to find his way back to inspiration.  At one point, he says with naked simplicity, “I’ve lost my mom. I lost my dad.  Not necessarily lonely, but there’s nothing going on except I’m working. At this point, I don’t know what to do.”   With the help of Duplass, it’s with that same honesty that Gant finds his inspiration again, and when you reach the film’s end, you may need to reach for a Kleenex.

Cable on Demand

Like Crazy
Cast: Anton Yelchin , Felicity Jones, Jennifer Lawrence, Charlie Bewley, Oliver Muirhead, Alex Kingston
Director: Drake Doremus

The beauty and frustration of the film, Like Crazy, is that it’s simply a love story with a simple conflict, and, unfortunately, a simple solution. When Anna, a British student, falls hard for Jacob, an American student, they tumble head over heels in love.  They’re both in college in Los Angeles, and graduation is fast approaching. With graduation comes the end of Anna’s student visa in America.

Are young people in love gullible enough to believe that love conquers all?  Of course they are.  That’s what makes the characters in Like Crazy so identifiable.  When you’re 21, in love and caught up in that love, it seems like anything is possible and nothing will stand in your way – not even something like a visa.  The future doesn’t mean anything, because all you think about is the here and now and being with the person you love.  It’s a simple and believable premise, because so many of us have been there.  What makes the film even more immediate is its shy and delicate improvisational nature.  Actors Anton Yelchin, who plays Jacob, and Felicity Jones, who plays Anna, were merely given a long outline by writers Drake Doremus and Ben York Jones.  From that outline, the director and actors built the meat of the story, allowing for a spontaneous relationship to develop onscreen between both Yelchin and Jones.  With two lesser actors, the result might have been disastrous, but Yelchin and Jones both have a natural talent and chemistry.  Their hesitant first conversations and quiet flirtation have an honest sincerity that comes across onscreen.

The ultimate flaw of the film comes from the fact that it attempts to tell the story equally through both Jacob and Anna’s eyes.  The duel point of view is complicated because of the very easy solution to their problem.  While Anna has violated her American visa and is stuck in London, nothing is stopping Jacob from going to London to be there with her.  Instead, Anna does everything in her power to return to Jacob.  We see Anna delicately try to broach the subject with Jacob, but the issue is never fully explored with due depth from Jacob’s point of view.  You sense that Anna might love Jacob more than he loves her, and if the movie were mostly from her POV, this plot point would have been more understandable.  However, we’re told the story equally from both Anna and Jacob’s POV, which creates a sharp imbalance to the story.  We never truly understand why Jacob won’t make the leap, and it’s frustrating since Anna’s character is created with such depth and honesty.   Despite this flaw, Like Crazy makes our must watch list for this weekend because it’s a quiet love story without the Hollywood cliché rom com tropes.  It reminds us of how people truly fall in love, and sometimes no matter how hard you fight, you may end up with an ending more like The Graduate than perhaps Pretty in Pink.