A best friend for woman and dog: Gordon (Nate Smith) in Hello Lonesome.
Six degrees of solitude
By John Esther
The type of quiet, kind film one is likely to see at a film festival -- with little chance of any other viewing opportunity -- writer-director-producer Adam Reid’s Hello Lonesome focuses on three relationships amongst six characters.
Isolated by work and wife, Bill (Harry Chase) dwells in and around his high design digs wearing colorful briefs, riding along dirt paths on his little off-road vehicle, doing commercial voiceovers in his private sound booth and leaving elongated, desperate messages on his estranged daughter’s voicemail. His only real face-to-face contact comes when he exchanges innocuous jabs his deliveryman, Omar (Kamel Boutros), comes to the door.
Gordon (Nate Smith) is a charming young man on an unbeatable gambling streak that would be great if his luck were not offset by the terrible misfortune of his new girlfriend, Debby (Sabrina Lloyd), who also has a cool pad (does she work?) that includes two large, adorable dogs. While neither of them can make a meal their relationship cooks up emotions of a higher level.
Eleanor (Lynn Cohen) is a widow who has lost her license and is now dependent on her young neighbor, Gary (James Urbaniak), a copy editor whose frankness borders on rudeness. In the need of contact, the two think, drink and slumber together, but without going Harold and Maude.
Eschewing crisscrossing the three sets of relationships, this sometimes slightly strained Narrative Competition entry composes a loving testimony to the small, seemingly unremarkable, yet they are quite remarkable, relationships -- spanning numerous generations – that keep people from wanting to say hi to the only alternative to life.
(Hello Lonesome screens June 18, 7:30 p.m., Regal Cinemas; June 22, 10:15 p.m., Regal Cinemas; June 23, 5:30 p.m., Regal Cinemas)
