Boy Downstairs, The

Stars: Zosia Mamet, Matthew Shear

Director: Sophie Brooks

Confused? You will be - by the timelines in this rom-not-very-com with virtually no storyline apart from the two main characters meeting each other over a period of four years.

I must admit to sometimes completely losing track as to whether we were in the present, 'three years later', or 'four years earlier'.

I've nothing against the heroine (Mamet) - with her stick-like figure, scruffy blonde hair and horizontal black eyebrows - not being pretty, but she needs to have some personality, her flat delivery of lines bearing no hint of that.

Her on-off beau (Shear) is hardly better.

Very New York Indie, the film is like Greta Gerwig meeting Seth Rogen on a very bad day.

These characters are admittedly people who struggle with words (surprisingly as 'Diana' is an aspiring writer) but their conversations don't seem to have much to do with real life.

New York itself continues to have more personality than anything else on show in a film that seems quite bit longer than its relatively brief runtime.

David Quinlan

USA 2016. UK Distributor: Altitude. Colour (unspecified).
91 minutes. Not widescreen. UK certificate: 12A.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 0, Swearing 1.

Review date: 06 Jun 2018