The movie follows the story of Jake's family who decided to move to his grandfather's home in Brooklyn when his grandfather died. One day, Tony and Jake will meet with each other as their relationship thrives and faces challenges to each other perfectly due to their parents' conflict.
Shoring together small moments from the lives of believable characters, in a manner free of special effects and fluky plotting, and with the same dramatic and visual gusto one would apply to an epic is what independent filmmaking should be all about.
This is not a Disney movie with a teary resolution and all sins forgiven. Sachs is more interested in the nuances of relationships, the power of childhood friendship...
Acting is not the problem here. The story is the problem. It takes aim at some serious issues, but doesn't have the guts to really address them. Instead, the story skittishly skates around the issues it raises, and quits before it gets ahead.
As in the films of the French New Wave's Eric Rohmer, nothing cloying happens here, nothing plainly engineered to elicit emotions. But emotions are elicited - moral and ethical concerns are addressed, examined, defined.
Sachs is a wonderfully humane filmmaker. There are never out and out saints or demons in his films, but richly detailed, relatable lives offered for us to understand.
Its smallness makes it grand and moving. These are the things, these little moments, decisions and consequences that most human lives are made of, after all.
