Stanley Tucci stars and directs in this tale of a married couple trying to love each other in the wake of personal disaster.

Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson place and answer each other’s personal ads in order to give themselves a space to discuss the death of a loved one. The film deals with the problem of falling out of love in a strange fashion. If we fell in love with each other as strangers would it help us remember why we loved in the first place? Tucci and Clarkson are believable and interesting in their roles as the married couple, playing both as guarded yet intimate people.

Though the concept of removing oneself one step from tragedy in order to talk about it is not a new one, it feels a bit thin and flat. As grown, married adults, shouldn’t they be able to discuss things, no matter how difficult? And though we are left alone with Tucci and Clarkson for the near entirety of the film, by the end, it feels that we know them only slightly better than before. They are still wholly themselves, still empty and feeling their loss quite heavily. Clarkson is luminous and subtle in her portrayal of a grieving mother, while Tucci’s attempts to laugh in spite of the grief add depth and emotion to fairly dark circumstances.

Unfortunately, the film stalls somewhere around the midway point, with the gimmick of endlessly meeting and re-meeting finally paling a bit. While the situations are entertaining (a blind man looking for a mate, a dancer looking for a partner, and so on...) and though Tucci and Clarkson play their roles admirably, the movie eventually feels bogs down, as there is no resolution and endless false starts offer no ulterior meaning. The film ends unexpectedly, and somewhat shockingly, a futile end to a promising beginning.

Grade: C

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