Review: The Broken Hearts Gallery

Image courtesy of TriStar.

"The Broken Hearts Gallery" gave me low expectations in its early scenes with its overtly quirky hipster dialogue, but it eventually settles into being a somewhat charming - if not wholly believable - rom com with an agreeable lead character.

Geraldine Viswanathan plays Lucy, an assistant to a famous art gallery owner (played by Bernadette Peters) who wants to one day have a place of her own to exhibit art. But this dream plays second fiddle to her obsessing about ex's and her collection of memorabilia from previous failed relationships. Her two roommates - Nadine (Phillipa Soo) and Amanda (Molly Gordon) - find Lucy's collection to be slightly unsettling, but she sees the objects - from a rubber ducky to a bizarre-looking Barbie doll with frizzy hair - as being permanent in a way her relationships were not.

After being dumped by her latest boyfriend, Max (Utkarsh Ambudkar), whose ambition exceeds his empathy, she gets drunk and hops into a car she believes to be an Uber - it's not. This is the - to use a Roger Ebert phrase - "meet cute" she'll have with Nick (Dacre Montgomery), an affable guy who's in the middle of planning a boutique hotel in Manhattan.

After becoming friends with Nick, Lucy visits him at his hotel-in-progress. While there, she hangs a tie from her former beau on a nail on the wall and adds a description. An idea pops into her head: Why not create an exhibit completely of memorabilia from relationships gone bad? Hence, the film's title. Needless to say, she moves forward with the plan and Nick grudgingly agrees to let Lucy use space in his hotel - known as the Chloe - for the exhibit.

It may not surprise you to hear that "The Broken Hearts Gallery" is the type of film in which lowly assistants live in posh pads in Manhattan or that dreams can come true in a matter of weeks with just the right amount of pluck. There's even a scene in which a speech Lucy is giving to a group of people is interrupted by a "grand gesture" from Nick - which some might find to be an example of movies insisting that female characters emphasize their love lives before their careers. In other words, we're in standard rom com territory.

What makes Natalie Krinsky's film slightly more watchable than average examples of this genre is Viswanathan, whose never-ending, rapid fire delivery and Lucy's wear-your-quirks-on-your-sleeve personality eventually become endearing. The picture also pays a fair amount of attention to its supporting characters - from Lucy's roommates to Nick and his construction partner, Marcos (Arturo Castro), and Marcos's very pregnant wife - which is nice.

So, yes, "The Broken Hearts Gallery" often follows romantic comedy cliches - often to its detriment - and I can't exactly say the film is an overall success. But its leading lady, the supporting cast and a few good laughs and charming moments make it watchable enough.