'The Broken Hearts Gallery' Review
PG-13: Sexual content throughout and some crude references, strong language and drug references
Runtime: 1 Hrs and 49 Minutes
Production Companies: TriStar Pictures, Stage 6 Films, No Trace Camping
Distributor: TriStar Pictures
Director: Natalie Krinsky
Writer: Natalie Krinsky
Cast: Geraldine Viswanathan, Dacre Montgomery, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Molly Gordon, Phillipa Soo, Bernadette Peters
Release Date: September 11, 2020
What if you saved a souvenir from every relationship you've ever been in? The Broken Hearts Gallery follows the always unique Lucy (Geraldine Viswanathan), a 20-something-year-old art gallery assistant living in New York City, who also happens to be an emotional hoarder. After she gets dumped by her latest boyfriend, Lucy is inspired to create The Broken Heart Gallery, a pop-up space for the items love has left behind. Word of the gallery spreads, encouraging a movement and a fresh start for all the romantics out there, including Lucy herself.
Ever since she entered the scene as a breakout performer in Kay Cannon’s 2018 hit comedy Blockers, Geraldine Viswanathan has been on a roll showcasing her talents as an actress. She can share a scene with experienced juggernaut performers like Allison Janney, Steve Buscemi, and Hugh Jackman and stay on their level. With this being her first leading role in a rom-com, Viswanathan, to no surprise, absolutely slays it across the board. She carries the role of Lucy with strong, unbridled confidence, flawless comedic timing, and charisma. Even when Lucy’s overbearing behavior gets under your skin, Viswanathan’s quick wit and vibrant energy make you root for her success with both her love life and her community gallery. In the next few years, we might find ourselves hearing the phrase ‘Academy Award nominee Geraldine Viswanathan’ because she has that star power.
Dacre Montgomery is great in this film as Viswanathan’s romantic lead, Nick. Montgomery portrays a hot and charming guy who is simply just… hot and charming, not hot and evil. Their meet-cutes in the first act are charming and the way they form their relationship is genuine. Granted, Nick’s character is the emotionally reserved straight man to Lucy’s eccentrism, but their chemistry truly carries the film.
The performances by the remaining cast members add to the film’s overall vibrant atmosphere. The Broken Hearts Gallery features recognizable faces like Arturo Castro as Nick’s best friend, Utkarsh Ambudkar as Lucy’s ex-boyfriend/boss, and ageless beauty Bernadette Peters as a rich gallery owner. But the two most notable performers who stand out as a dynamic comedic duo are Phillipa Soo and Molly Gordon as Lucy’s best friends/roommates, Nadine and Amanda. Soo and Gordon had me dying of laughter. Hell, I want a spin-off starring those characters because they have the best jokes, the sickest burns, and a few running gags that make them and their lifestyle hysterical.
First-time feature writer/director Natalie Krinsky’s The Broken Hearts Gallery poses as a contemporary rom-com for the Millennial/early Gen-Z generations that prospers from an honest and consistent approach to its premise. Albeit being formulaic by design, The Broken Hearts Gallery provides a genuinely modern perspective. Krinsky displays NYC through the eyes of her young characters, which gives the story a fresh feel. Most of the film’s locations complement the quirky, quasi-lavish lifestyles of these hipster characters as they navigate through the famously bizarre city.
Lucy, a 20-something-year-old woman who collects one piece of memorabilia from all of her ex flames for sentimental purposes, gets a crazy yet creative idea: make a community art gallery space dedicated to broken hearts after she’s broken up with/fired by her older gallery director/boyfriend. If you’re a 20-something-year-old New Yorker (or a like-minded person of the generation), the premise is not too far-fetched. The current state of our digital age also makes Lucy's rise to instant popularity very believable. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t do much to break through various frustrating contrivances of the genre.
The Broken Hearts Gallery may work as a hip, contemporary romantic comedy, but it lacks newness. Instead of providing important commentary or poignant character arcs about navigating through heartbreak, it follows the route of familiarity and settles for being a standard, predictable rom-com that hits a substantial amount of cliched road bumps along the way. It completely strays away from being memorable, playing it safe while relying on a frustrating formula that has been done far too many times before. The first act boasts a strong personality and a fresh approach, but somewhere within the second act, Nick becomes a more prominent figure and the film ends up being a typical rom-com. When you have so much potential within your film that boasts a solid, talented cast like this one, it’s exhausting to witness every annoying cliched beat come into fruition, ranging from the late romantic grand gesture to the variety of faux conflicts due to miscommunication.
While Krinsky nails the perspective of the late Millennial struggle of following your dreams, the romantic tropes bear such late-‘90s energy. This generation may not be the best, but at least we know how to properly communicate and not let everything escalate from 0 to 100 so quickly. Every story beat feels too rushed or repetitive and there are times when these characters act like people straight out of a Nicholas Sparks film. Yeah, it reaches a Sparks level of cringe.
Despite the great cast and their vibrant energy, none of the characters outside of Lucy are particularly interesting — not even Nick. He’s too straight-laced and so closed off that it prevents the audience from being able to emotionally invest themselves in him as much as his romantic interest does. Even Lucy is a bit too overbearing for her own good. Okay, let me be honest, Lucy has a ton of increasingly jarring moments, particularly when she’s trying to confront her ex, who she runs into ever so often (y’know, in overpopulated New York City).
God, I hate how every theatrical release is putting me in a position where I have to say whether or not people should risk their whole life to see a movie in a theater. In the case of The Broken Hearts Gallery, the answer is clearly no. But what about a drive-thru? The answer is also no. I was sent a digital screener and, while I do think it’s an okay movie, it’s better to watch it at home. It makes for a good rental more so than a theatrical movie, COVID-19 or not.
