Another recent independent feature that I like is the (un)romantic comedy The Broken Hearts Gallery.  It is another New York story with young people looking for, and largely failing to find, romantic happiness in the Big Apple.  We’ve all seen this before, but in this case the young people are very appealing, the story has some very clever aspects and I have to admit that I was hooked and reeled in like a fish.

Natalie Krinsky’s film follows Lucy (Geraldine Viswanathan) as she tries to rebound from yet another painful relationship breakup.  She is an emotional hoarder, having kept trinkets from everyone she’s ever been with, and circumstances and friends lead her to begin to make part of her collection public.  Soon Lucy is taking donations to start a gallery regarding heartache at an unfinished hotel, while she becomes closer and closer to Nick (Dacre Montgomery), who is trying to finish and open his small hotel.  You can guess who ends up with who.

While the film’s obvious path is unsurprising, it is handled with wit and humor.  The characters of Lucy and her female roommates are fun and believable, and the New York dating and art scenes seem very convincing.  I enjoyed the restraint of the filmmakers in keeping things fairly clean (it’s PG-13); but in fact I think the humor could have been a little wilder.  There could have been more precise location filming, too; much of it was lensed in Toronto, not New York.  Even so, I really enjoyed this comedy, and that is because of Lucy.

Some performers just take their roles and run with them, and that is what Geraldine Viswanathan does with Lucy.  She is a delightful presence, clever and smart and sensitive and neurotic, perfectly matched with the urban milieu and the story’s machinations.  She won me over early on and it was fun watching and hoping that Lucy would find some semblance of happiness in the Big Apple, even as she collected and cultivated artifacts of heartbreak.  I definitely recommend this film to romantic comedy fans.  ☆ ☆ ☆.  8 April 2021.