There are a lot of well-written scenes in this indie romance, but they don't quite add up to a fully fleshed out film. Writer/director Jay DiPietro has a good ear for the way people really talk and how arguments in relationships tend to center around mundane things like ordering food. He shows us many episodes like this in a relationship that starts passionately and descends into ugliness. These episodes jump through time to juxtapose the good and the bad. There is good and bad in this approach.
We first meet Peter (Jason Ritter, MUMFORD) and Vandy (Jess Weixler, TEETH) during a romantic picnic looking out at the Statue of Liberty. The idyllic scene doesn't end as romantic as either hoped for. They met on a park bench during lunch as Peter tells Vandy that the Chinese restaurant she order from will make a chicken salad instead of the fattening fried rice. An awkward meet cute for sure. Vandy is dating someone, but Peter impresses her with a sweet gesture. Soon enough they are dating and hurling insults at each other over how to make a peanut butter sandwich.
Ritter and Weixler are charming leads, bringing a natural feel to DiPietro good dialogue. Ritter's Peter is not a go-getter, but he's thoughtful of Vandy and funny. But he takes his resentments and failures out on her in a cruel way. So cruel at times that we question why Vandy would want to stay with this rage-aholic. Weixler, who was so outstanding in the cheeky horror film TEETH, makes Vandy smart and encouraging; another reason to make us wonder why she's with the loserish Peter.
DiPietro spends too much time being clever with his story structure, which is like ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF A SPOTLESS MIND without the sci-fi, that he obstructs his chief goal. Relationships start out sweet, but change into something different when people get comfortable. DiPietro spends too much time with the bad parts of that comfort. Because the bad outweighs the good, we stop rooting for them, which is not what DiPietro wants.
I never got comfortable with the film's non-linear gimmick, but I did get annoyed with it. Because one scene doesn't really flow into the next, they stick out as scenes instead of an organic whole. Too many scenes deal with food and how we argue about it or commune around it that they begin to feel redundant. On their own, they're well conceived and Ritter and Weixler shine in them. But I got the feel that these were one-scene college acting exercises, not the building blocks of a feature film. This film is worth seeing only for the performances and a look at a promising filmmaker who needs to stop showing off and simply show his talent.
Buy "Peter and Vandy" on DVD Here!
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
