“Maybe we’re in one of those Japanese horror movies – the ones with creepy empty apartments, corridors and lifts.” So says Kris Marshall’s just-made-redundant record-company worker Tom when he finds himself stuck in an elevator with Annelise Hesme’s Eloise, the French consultant who authorised his firing.
Sadly, rather than being in a horror movie, they’re trapped in a slightly naff British romcom that attempts to weld the beginning/end of the affair structure of Blue Valentine to some Richard Curtis-lite South Bank soppiness. Marshall and Hesme are amiable players, but writer/director Gavin Boyter packs their conversations (which cut back and forth across the years) with too much cliche and contrivance for their putative relationship to gel, let alone sparkle.
