Review: Blue Jay

Former lovers stroll down memory lane and ponder the path not taken in the unassuming but affecting black-and-white two-hander, Blue Jay.

Mark Duplass and Sarah Paulson star as Jim and Amanda, who run into each other by chance at the supermarket whilst visiting their former hometown. She's in town to visit her pregnant sister, while he's tending to his recently deceased mother's affairs. They both spot one another but pretend not to, neither wanting to make the first move until Amanda finally bites the bullet and says hello. Their exchange is awkward - "How are you?" Jim asks twice before admitting he's licking his lips because he hasn't brushed his teeth yet. Both fumble in the spaces between the small talk. They part ways - one can see it's with reluctance and something left unspoken.

Which is perhaps why, minutes later in the parking lot, Amanda accepts Jim's invitation to grab a coffee. Coffee turns into a visit to the liquor shop they used to frequent and where the owner still views them as the famous lovebirds. Then a pause by the lake as they catch up over jellybeans (Jim leaves the pink and purple ones for her as they're her favourites) and finally at his childhood home where they sift through more concrete memories of their past lives, including a tongue-in-cheek recording they made envisioning their future together. Their remembrances evolve into re-enactments - their whole time is one great pretend in this nostalgic cocoon - and bitterness begins to bubble under the sweetness.

There's a lovely airiness to the film, which is tinged with a cosy melancholy. Duplass and Paulson have such lived-in chemistry that the weight of their former romance and present feelings are palpable. Yet their complex performances convey the agitations that tore Jim and Amanda apart. There's a wistfulness in their laughter, a resentment in their smiles, and in many respects they haven't really changed much in the time since they last saw one another. Jim is still a man-child living in the past and drifting in the present and there's a knowingness and pragmatism to Amanda that belies her romanticism.

The film may veer a bit too melodramatically in its final act for some, but Blue Jay is a mostly hushed and intimate affair with two superb actors front and center.

Blue Jay

Directed by: Alexandre Lehmann

Written by: Mark Duplass

Starring: Sarah Paulson, Mark Duplass