Bryce Loski (Callan McAuliffe) and his family have just moved into the neighbourhood and his new neighbour, Juli Baker (Madeline Carroll), is in love with him. The film chronicles the ups and downs of their relationship through the years as Juli deals with Bryce’s shyness and Bryce tries to deal with Juli’s over eagerness.

I was sceptical at first when I saw the trailer for the movie. I know that Rob Reiner has given me a few of my favourite movies, including: The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally… and A Few Good Men, but I just didn’t think he could find a way to make this type of film again in such a way that I hadn’t seen before. Fortunately for me I was wrong. Reiner decided to use this multiple perspective narrative to not only make the film great, but at the same time make a very familiar story completely fresh.

Instead of the usual coming of age love story set in the 60s (or so I assume it is) where we see the guy deal with his shyness and not getting that the girl across the road from him is not only a great girl, but is also deeply in love with him, we’re treated to that very story from the perspective of both the guy and girl. The film knows the important chapters of the love story of Bryce and Juli and decides to take up through those chapters step by step making sure to give us both sides of the story in such a way that we never feel disoriented or mislead. This take not only gives me something to be invested in, but makes my shouting at the screen a lot more valid as I tell Bryce that he’s an idiot and Juli that she needs to move on.

As we shift from one perspective to the next we also switch households. There’re so many moments that we get in the home of each family where we get a bit of an understanding of who these people are. Steven Loski (Anthony Edwards) and Richard Baker (Aidan Quinn) are so similar and so different in so many ways. They’re both just men who’re trying to provide for their families and trying to make the best of a bad situation. Steven has to deal with the fact that he had to give up his dreams for his family and Richard has to live in a lower standing that he had hoped because he decided to take care of his mentally disabled brother that we meet later in the film. We sympathize with both characters and both roles are played beautifully, but Mr. Loski comes off a bit too bitter about it all for us to fully side with him on all of his drunken tirades while Mr. Baker comes off as a blessed soul who never asks for it back because it’s not an easy life. Watching the development of both fathers you can see how a simple switch can make either character into the other, which is what I love about the movie. It shows that it’s not that hard for you to be that guy who’s living across the road from you who you find yourself critiquing from the comfort of your living room every day.

The film presents some great moments and definitely earns its spot as a missed gem of 2010. If you find yourself with ninety minutes to spare this week then I have to say that you can’t go wrong with this movie.

IMDB says 7.0/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 57%

I say 7.5/10