The Boy Downstairs

He's not a boy, he's a man. She's not a girl, she's a young woman. This is the story of how they don't get together, or did once, sort of.

As a film about non communication it feels real, but do you want to watch a dull musician and an insecure writer run out of conversation?

She is bottle blonde. He is a bear with a lazy eye. She has one of those voices that scrapes across a blackboard. He grunts in a low register as if his emotional messaging remains Jurassic.

Trying to make sense of this film as entertainment wastes more time than you spend taking the rubbish out.

Let it go.

Let what go?

Life isn't like what they tell you in baby books. It is a random mix of bad decisions, failed enterprises and broken dreams. Before anyone accuses you of cynicism offer the festering truth about your first date.

The Boy Downstairs is a first date multiplied by 90 mins, the growing pains of what normal people call a relationship.

She is trying to do what thousands of others have attempted since reading Jack Kerouac while he is locked into a techno sound space like the lost leader of a nowhere band.

She thinks about him. He misses her. They speak into the wind that blows across a desert of discontent.

This is New York, the city of Sinatra where hope is resurrected in the music of long ago and tomorrow brings bagels and memories of The Village before Robert Zimmerman changed his name.

Hang on a pretty minute! That's another movie, not this one.

All you have to do is open your arms and let the love in. Sounds better on paper. With these two the sky is grey, the nights long and the coffee cold.