The very first thing to find out about “Charlie Harper” is that it’s not, in truth, about somebody referred to as Charlie Harper. Charlie (Nick Robinson) and Harper (Emilia Jones) are a pair, assembly and parting at numerous phases throughout a five-year timeline; the title of this earnestly melancholy first characteristic by directing duo Mac Eldridge and Tom Dean implies that they’re two halves of a shared soul, whether or not they’re collectively or not. That’s one romantic notion of many in a free-floating relationship drama, which employs an intuitively non-linear construction to enliven what’s in any other case a reasonably standard, abnormal love story between two engaging however imperfect folks. Robinson and Jones are a likable sufficient pairing to make “Charlie Harper” affecting right here and there; making it attention-grabbing is a taller order.
Shortly after its premiere finally 12 months’s Toronto Movie Competition, “Charlie Harper” was acquired for North America by then brand-new distributor Row Ok Leisure; solely now, over a 12 months later, is it hitting theaters. That delay is kind of becoming for a narrative largely concerning the time it takes for all times to fall into place, however the movie itself doesn’t encourage a lot urgency. Likelier to be discovered by audiences on VOD, it zigzags with some grace between the peaks and troughs of the romance at its heart, however by no means gathers a lot momentum and even a lot depth of emotion; we surmise nicely earlier than the top that our lovers most likely aren’t meant to be, and for that we might really feel some wistful, understanding disappointment. However our hearts don’t break for them.
We start, naturally, someplace within the center: Our introduction to the principals will not be theirs to one another. When Charlie approaches Harper in a low-lit bar to introduce himself, she says they’ve met earlier than, jogging his reminiscence about their first encounter method again in highschool. However that is simply one other spherical of a recreation they’ve performed earlier than, with the shoe on the opposite foot, and once we circle again to that very same scene towards the shut, we’re extra acutely aware of the burden of what has transpired between them. Beginning over as strangers can be sweeter and simpler.
Quickly after, however a number of years earlier, a mirror picture of this scene sees Harper taunt Charlie with feigned unfamiliarity at a university get together on the night time of Barack Obama’s first presidential victory: A shared backstory, younger nonetheless, emerges, as does a historical past of relationship-defining songs, exchanged on quaintly bodily codecs. (Their signature quantity is Brenda Lee’s bittersweet “Break It to Me Gently” — how glad can any romance be when it’s based on a ballad that heartsore?) He’s a charismatic slacker, brilliant however aimless, and content material to work menial jobs till, nicely, his discontent will get the higher of him. She, in contrast, has a transparent route in life — from their small city to New Orleans, the place she plans to coach as a chef. (That makes “Charlie Harper” the second romance this 12 months, after Netflix’s “Voicemails for Isabelle,” to pair Robinson with a connoisseur love curiosity. Not a foul sort to have.)
For a time, they dwell collectively in shabby-chic Louisiana bliss, however the fault strains are straightforward to identify: Her ambitions curve ever farther away from his, and his rising consuming drawback worsens issues. The movie would have us consider that Charlie is a genius squandering his brilliance, although the script’s relatively tenuous demonstration of that is the truth that he associates madeleines with Proust; both method, the longer we spend bouncing round their relationship, the extra we sense that the couple aren’t particularly suitable of their respective presents, a lot much less their failings.
“Charlie Harper” is constructed with care: Eldridge and Dean’s route might be nimble and imaginative, making up for shortfalls within the writing (by Dean alone). Sharone Meir’s lensing deftly marks the varied passages of the couple’s story with clear shifts in palette and texture, from the flushed, saturated lighting of first like to the crisper, brighter readability that comes with time and age and disappointment. Sam Levy’s enhancing likewise darts associatively between these moods, seemingly letting sense reminiscence form the chronology of proceedings. However it could actually really feel like various formal enterprise for a narrative this slight. As viewers navigate the movie’s loops and reversals, they could really feel — relatively just like the embattled lovers working away at their relationship — that they’re placing extra into this factor than they’re getting out of it.
