28 Hotel Rooms
Matt Ross' "28 Hotel Rooms" flirts with erotic and cinematic possibilities in examining a long-distance affair that starts with casual sex and grows to emotional involvement over a number of years.
Director: Matt Ross
Starring: Chris Messina, Marin Ireland
In its own small way, by documenting the petty panic of two people who want to be together but are otherwise entangled, 28 Hotel Rooms is often masterful.
Despite the familiar setup, this is no "Same Time, Next Year," what with its hot-sheets trysts, full-frontal flashes and frank language. But the brief - sometimes very brief - encounters glimpsed here between the film's leads and sole characters (billed only as "Man" and "Woman") are inventive and telling.
Messina and Ireland thrive under that gaze, and dismaying affectations aside-the characters go needlessly unnamed - the movie articulates the enduring allure of a love defined, and heightened, by restrictions.
At the very least 28 Hotel Rooms, the first feature written and directed by Matt Ross, is an impressively executed acting exercise for Chris Messina and Marin Ireland.
Not showing us every aspect of their lives is a fine, even novel, approach, but merely telling us about them instead feels like a fruitless middle ground.
No awards