It Was You Charlie
Director: Emmanuel Shirinian
Writer: Emmanuel Shirinian
Cast: Michael D. Cohen, Emma Fleury, Aaron Abrams, Anna Hopkins, Alon Nashman, Phyllis Ellis
[Screener Review.]
You can watch it here.

Plot:
Abner’s (Michael D. Cohen) life has become increasingly bad in the last few years. After a traffic accident that still haunts him, he went from art teacher and sculptor to night porter. He fell out with his brother Tom (Aaron Abrams) after Tom fell in love with Madeleine (Anna Hopkins) – and she with him – despite the fact that Abner liked her, too. He is ready to kill himself, when Zoe (Emma Fleury) shows up, a cab driver who takes an interest in Abner.

It was you Charlie was nice. Not great, but sweet. At the very least it turned what could have been one of the worst instance of Manic Pixie Dream Girl-ism around on its head. While it is a little uneven, it is still enjoyable.

[SPOILERS]

One of the film’s issues is that it takes too long to reveal what is going on. That means that you spend most of the film wondering why the hell Zoe would invest so much time in Abner and would make it her mission to turn his frown upside down. I mean, I know that the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is a popular trope but it never made much sense outside of the brains of the guys who thought them up. So, you basically go through this film thinking that this is again what happens here only to realize that Abner has, in fact, imagined Zoe. He conjured her up to deal with the fact that he killed her in the car accident. That makes the entire thing instantly better and I loved that subversion, but the fact is that it still leaves us with a film that engages in that trope for a long while.

The other problem is that the film doesn’t quite manage to find its voice. It’s funny at times (at least if you like dark humor and can laugh about botched suicide attempts – I can) but its never funny enough to really make you laugh. It’s sad at times, but it’s never sad enough to really make you cry.

But there is enough there to keep you engaged anyway. The performances are strong, especially Michael D. Cohen and Aaron Abrams work extremely well as the two brothers. Phyllis Ellis was also great (even if her character was underdeveloped and remains a pawn for Abner’s development).

It also looked very nice, despite the many shades of brown it featured (something I’m usually not overly fond of). And even if the resolution of the plot (and its sweet, albeit predictable ending) came a little too late, I never lost interest in the film and I still wanted to see how it would end.

Summarizing: Enjoyable but not amazing.