Director: John Crowley

Stars: Florence Pugh, Andrew Garfield, Lee Braithwaite, Douglas Hodge

This contrived, chronology-juggling romcom with a twist is an ill-fitting combination of tweeness and heavy drama. Middle-aged Weetabix representative (twee!) Tobias (Garfield) is on his way to buy a pen to sign his divorce papers when he is knocked over by a car driven by Almut (Pugh). She is an ambitious Bavarian-fusion chef who, guilt-stricken, invites Tobias, and, unbeknownst to Almut, his soon to be ex-wife for a meal at her restaurant. A relationship follows and the couple muse on their respective ideas of commitment. Then their plans are derailed by some shocking news. The winning chemistry between Pugh and Garfield just about makes up for the machine-tooled levels of contrivance at play here with the indie rock needle drops, dramatically expedient weather (where a downpour can always be relied on to underline moments of heaviness), and moments of sentimentality punctured with Britfilm plucky posho swearing. Despite the harrowing subject matter the film remains jarringly pretty and reassuring.

David Willoughby

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