This film, on paper, hits all the right buttons for me. I have a special regard for the "2 people spending 90 minutes talking to each other" kind of films, Before Sunrise, its sequel and Conversations With Other Women are amongst my favourite that this decade has produced. This though slightly misfires and while retaining an inherent interest to me it's inbetween the Once bracket and the Interview level in terms of quality, which while no disgrace means it doesn't quite live up to the best of the films of this kind.

The story is that a guy lives with a couple. After being caught masturbating to his friend's girlfriend's picture (one of the few mis-steps in tone this film takes) they decide he needs a date for new year's eve and encourage him to leave a message on a dating website. He arranges to meet the first woman who replies and he spends the evening with her.

The best thing about the film is the acting. The delightfully named Scoot McNairy is kind of a cross between Casey Affleck and Mark Ruffalo and he both delivers his lines and portrays his emotions with great believability. Sara Simmonds' plays her character totally straight, she keeps him at a distance nicely and makes her character's evening feel authentic.

The problem though is that ... you don't care for them at all as a couple because she's such an unlikable character throughout. The film seems perfectly happy to suggest that as long as someone is beautiful then overlooking all of their character flaws and inherent nastiness is fine, provided there's at least hope of a sexual encounter at the end of the evening. This is hardly something worth commending. The guy actually says (after the girl has been completely miserable to him for about a third of the film's entire screentime) that he's lonely and doesn't want to spend the night alone - that's all very well and good but her only redeeming feature being her looks (he repeatedly tells her how beautiful she is - we are to assume he's only talking about the exterior) is hardly enough to get emotionally involved with these two characters and where their evening goes.

While the dialogue is very natural and often amusing, the main problem of characterisation aside is the supporting players. The sub-plot of his housemates getting engaged or not provides no drama and serves merely as a vehicle to get our leads into the situation the writer wants them to be in when the New Year comes around (thereafter it gets dropped mercilessly and left totally in the air). Minor characters are introduced then come back to later to contrast what they're doing at this culmination of the evening ... and again is our man really better off with the person he's chosen to be with? The film doesn't even ask that question, it just makes us pity those "unfortunate" enough to be on their own.

It's beautifully shot in black and white (almost certainly for budgetary reasons) and very smoothly put together. It's a well made film, it's very well acted ... but what they're being asked to act leaves an aftertaste which is very difficult to swallow. As is inevitable in all of these films, at the end the guy asks if he can see the girl again - one only hopes she turns him down at that moment to prevent him being around such a horrible person. I did think it was quite good and I did enjoy the film but the more I think about it the less I like it.