Jack (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) is an guy who’s worked the same job forever and never been in a serious committed relationship. At the behest of his best friend, Clyde (John Ortiz), and his wife, Lucy (Daphne Rubin-Vega), Jack decides to go out with this girl, Connie (Amy Ryan). Jack and Connie makes a date for summer – six months in the future – to take Connie boating. However, Jack doesn’t know how to swim. This is the beginning of a massive relationship for Jack and a set of new things in his life.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman has been one of my favourite character actors of the last two decades ever since I saw him in Boogie Nights. This film however is his first film as a director, and it’s quite an interesting way to start out that aspect of his career.

If I were to applaud the cinematography and the overall style of the movie I’d be overhyping it. Where this movie shined was in its characters. While Jack and Connie remain enigmas to me; Clyde and Lucy are two of the liveliest and interesting individuals you’ll see interact on screen.  The two of them perfectly work as a couple that has been through hell and back. Even though they aren’t played as the ‘solid as a rock’ kind of couple you believe that they have that history that they claim to do in the narrative. The way that the two of them play off each other and respond to not only their future but their past is so emotionally satisfying that you can’t help but love them.

Jack on the other hand is a tougher nut to crack. Somehow this is character that you would expect to come packaged with a culminating dialogue heavy scene where he gives us this massive brick of a moment where he divulges some trauma from his past that explains why he’s the way he is.

Even though Jack doesn’t come off as an invalid or a broken person he does seem very withdrawn at times. He recedes back into himself and lets his music take over. On a side note, the film earns a point from me for using the famous Melodians song “Rivers of Babylon”. I’m Jamaican, I’ve heard the song played a billion times and it’s a great song.

Unlike most indie romantic dramedies like this where the writers explain why the love interest is quirky by having another character question it directly. Here instead everyone just accepts Jack and Connie’s oddities and lets them fall in love. While that’s a sweet touch to the love story it leaves me wanting and slightly wondering how flares don’t go off in Jack or Connie’s head. In the end however, the story does come off as a completely sweet tale of how these two really odd characters end up coming together to make both of their lives better.

It’s a sweet movie with a couple great scenes and some great characters that you can just get into. The film isn’t the best romantic movie I’ve seen this year – or last year – but it definitely sets itself apart from the pack of mediocre films out there.

IMDB says 6.9/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 67%

I say 6.5/10