Fits and Starts
Directed by Laura Terruso
Starring Wyatt Cenac, Greta Lee, Maria Dizzia, Alex Karpovsky and Ben Sinclair
A struggling writer can't seem to escape his wife's literary success. When a road trip to a publisher's salon takes an unexpected turn, he has to face his own creative shortcomings and find a way to regain control of his life and work.
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Reviews
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★★★★ review by Jason Bailey on Letterboxd
Writer/director Laura Terruso’s comedy of manners is very much in the spirit of the SXSW hit 'Hello, My Name is Doris' (which she co-wrote) a couple of years back: an offhandedly funny character comedy with genuine sweetness at its center. And it’s a depressingly rare reminder of the leading-man gifts of Wyatt Cenac, who is pitch perfect as a self-sabotaging novelist whose wife’s runaway success has put him even further into his own head. He conveys the intelligence and neuroticism of a young Woody Allen here, without leaning on any of the obvious tics, and he gets a good, lived-in vibe going with his onscreen wife, the wonderful Greta Lee. Terruso’s got a real eye and ear for the details of artistic pretentiousness and New York living, and if the complications that spur the action are a bit of a stretch, Cenac’s increasingly frazzled disposition keeps us engaged.
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★★★★ review by jamawive on Letterboxd
I laughed out loud, a lot. The premise isn't particularly novel, and satires of pretentious artistes and their patrons and hangers-on have certainly been done before, but this worked in a strangely intimate way. Wyatt Cenac is just completely fresh and believable as the mild-mannered writer having the night from hell.
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★★★½ review by el on Letterboxd
@ my creative friends:
never invite me to your artsy ppl parties they look exhausting -
★★★★½ review by yavin on Letterboxd
so what you're telling me is that to get over my current slump/self-esteem issues i need to get stranded at a rich person's house party full of pretentious self-involved crazy artists? interesting.
god this entire thing is such a MOOD though. highly relatable and very cute and i legit screamed at one part, what a Good
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★★★½ review by Stockton2Vlone on Letterboxd
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