PETER AND VANDY
Written & Directed by Jay DiPietro
Produced by DiPietro, Peter Sterling, Austin Stark, Benji Kohn & Bingo Gubelmann
Released by Strand Releasing
USA. 80 min. Not Rated
With Jason Ritter, Jess Weixler, Jesse L. Martin & Tracie Thorns
 

I once took a Russian lit class in college in which two terms were used to describe complex, time-bending narratives. The first was fabula, the order that events actually occur within the world of a story; the second was suzhet, the order that the author (or, in this case, filmmaker) chooses to present them for creative effect.

In our own movie age, films that dart back and forward in time (Memento, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, even Caché) usually tweak the narrative sequence in the interest of some kind of revelatory paroxysm of drama or pathos. But in Peter and Vandy, the fabula is fiddled with more to explore what bonds the film’s principal characters: Peter (Jason Ritter) and Vandy (Jess Weixler).

Written and directed by first-timer Jay DiPietro, the film is an occasionally charming attempt at capturing a relationship chugging along at second gear. This is not to say that we don’t encounter the extremes of modern romance (teary fights, steamy sex, personal turmoil, the allure of cubicle-mates), but the net effect of these events—which are blended with more mundane moments and presented out of time—leads us to an ambivalent, if credible, conclusion about these lovers and their problems.

Before you get the wrong idea, it should be said straight out that this is not a great movie, and it’s not really even that good. Each scene seems to end a few moments too late. The writing is humble, but also bland. And the acting, especially by Mr. Ritter, who plays an awkward, hands-in-his-pockets charmer, is earnest but not terribly interesting. Ms. Weixler, from the vaginally-fixated campfest Teeth, seems a bit lethargic.

But I am a sucker for premises, and this one got me. More than that, I’m a sucker for genuine stories about young love because being young and having loved is usually treated in such nauseating broad strokes in movies. As filmmakers born in the 1980’s or thereabouts get older, they will hopefully begin to match their emotional maturity (and Facebook-fueled self-regard) with some actual talent, and we will continue to see more considered, nuanced looks at twentysomething romance.

Peter and Vandy is set in New York, and I will hazard a guess that Mr. DiPietro has spent a good deal of time in that city. In one scene in which Peter pores over take-out menus (the duo eventually settles on Vietnamese), the director evokes the city here and now more credibly than other, better films, which seek such an evocation as their sole purpose. But despite the movie’s merits, and just like a messy relationship, I’m relieved that this one’s now in my rearview mirror. Stephen Heyman
October 9, 2009