If you’ve
ever seen “The Flight of the Conchords,” then you’d be forgiven for assuming
that the goofy Jemaine Clement (he’s the one with the
glasses) couldn’t possibly pull off believable dramatic acting in a leading-man
role. You’d also be wrong, as evidenced by his lovely performance in
writer-director Jim Strouse’s “People Places Things,”
a sweet but safe romantic comedy about a newly single father trying to
reconcile his past and establish a future.
Strouse
gets the plot moving quickly, with Clement’s Will
walking in on his girlfriend Charlie (Stephanie Allynne, “In a World…”) with
another man at the fifth birthday party for Will and Charlie’s twin daughters.
Fast-forward a year and Charlie is fielding a marriage proposal from the man
she left Will for, while Will, a successful graphic novelist and college
professor, works through his emotions via his art as well as teaching materials
which might be a little too personal. One of his students, Kat (Jessica
Williams from “The Daily Show”), decides to fix Will up with her
literature-professor mother Diane (a revelatory Regina Hall, the “Scary Movie”
series), and though the date devolves into awkwardness, there’s an unmistakable
spark between Will and Diane, both wary of involvement but clearly craving
connection.
“People Places Things” is as much
about Will and his dealings with adult women as it is his relationship with his
daughters, Clio and Colette (Gia Gadsby
and Aundrea Gadsby, both adorable and unaffected), a
bond that he understands takes precedence over his romantic life, even though
he struggles (often hilariously so) with the logistics of solo parenting.
There’s nothing terribly surprising about how the film unfolds, with unresolved
feelings, miscommunications, and little epiphanies, but that’s kind of
forgivable. Real life usually plays out in the same predictable way, and Strouse’s observant screenplay feels at least a little
autobiographical.
Strouse
(he also made 2007’s well-received “Grace Is Gone”) initially sets Charlie up
to look like a cuckolding bitch, more of a story device than complex woman, but
neither does he let Will off the hook for their entrenched problems, giving
Charlie (and by extension Allynne, in a layered performance) her own earned
path to… well, if not happiness, then perhaps contentment, and definitely on
her own clear-eyed terms. But this is Clement’s film:
he’s in pretty much every scene and he sells them all, whether he’s wrestling
with a tiny tent while camping with his delighted daughters or having one of
those heartbreaking but necessary conversations attendant to two people trying
to untangle lives that will, nonetheless, be forever intertwined.
This article appears in Aug 12-18, 2015.
