Ah, yes, young love. How is it that a couple can go from puppy love to being that couple who makes snide remarks at each other? You know, the kind where you’re pretty sure it’s an insult (I mean, it sure sounds like one), but maybe, just maybe it isn’t. Love. It’s complicated and wonderful, hard and … confusing.

And that’s what Peter and Vandy is really about. Peter (Jason Ritter) and Vandy (Jess Weixler) meet, date, live together and become that twisted, manipulative couple at the party. The one that seems to stay together, but you’re not really sure why.

The thing about Peter and Vandy though, is that the story’s told all out of order. We see little pieces of their everyday lives. The way they go about doing the little things we all do. The way they live and interact with each other. These little glimpses help make up a mosaic of their past to help the viewer get a feeling for where they’re going.

I guess it’s supposed to be an artsy, new take on a tired, old storyline – like Memento or Eternal Sunshine meets The Notebook – but in all reality, the film just comes off as confusing and slightly slow (and not in that good, “Is he going to call me?” sort of way). It feels intimate in its own way, and it really does manage to capture the relationship and vulnerability that Peter and Vandy share with each other, but the narrative is hard to follow. Really, that’s the point, I’m sure, since by the end, you have a good idea of where their relationship is headed and why they are the way they are.

It’s an allegory for love – the way you justify things that go wrong, the regrets you have and what you think about when you think you’re on the verge of giving up and how a couple falls into a comfort zone that they don’t want to leave. The way it’s confusing.

It’s a very thorough look at how a couple got to be the way they are, and it’s not a story of love triumphing over all else. It’s a story about how you have to work at love and how sometimes it can surprise you.

Grade: B-



Peter and Vandy releases in select theaters Oct. 9.