Cold Fries

Everyone knows what it is like to eat cold fries. They're gross and lack the inner warmth that normally makes them so good. Unfortunately, that is how I have felt lately. Having had my heart-parts proverbially broken, I've felt like cold fries. An unwanted, poor facsimile of my former self.

As anyone that has experienced that powerful word that starts with an L and ends with an OVE knows, it sucks harder than a Hoover when it doesn't go as one would hope. It is infinitely worse when things go so far awry that you end up losing sight of yourself.

Directed by Matthew Leutwyler and starring Jeremy Sisto, Poppy Montgomery, Erik Palladino and Vincent Ventresca, This Space Between Us is a film about loss and life. Sisto plays Alex, a man who has spent the last two years brooding over the loss of the love of his life. Bottling up his emotions and keeping himself stuck in place instead of moving on has caused Alex to burst emotionally. In order to keep himself from cracking completely, Alex leaves L.A. for San Francisco, where he runs across old friends, comes to terms with his loss, and finds something within himself to push forward.

Sure, it has been done a thousand different ways a thousand times before, (Garden State, The Graduate, and anything made by Edward Burns, Francois Truffaut, or Wong Kar-wai) but the journey of self discovery in This Space Between Us still feels fresh and unique. Leutwyler's ability as a director shines through, with locations feeling like characters and characters feeling like people. And the actors all provide excellent potrayals of characters that are likeable, flawed and human.

The identifiability that seems almost inate to Leutwyler as a storyteller and Sisto as an actor are to be marvelled at. Though it may be jokingly referred to as something that no one has seen, This Space Between Us is deserving of a lofty place within cinema, right up there with the likes of Chungking Express and The Brothers McMullen. If you haven't seen this, you should.