Movie Breakdown: The Broken Hearts Gallery

Pre-Screening Stance:

After having just seen the pleasant-but-forgettable Love, Guaranteed, I was prepared to pass on a screener for this similar-looking rom-com. However, my wife said she thought it looked great, so the move is to give it a go! Hopefully it has more bite to it than the aforementioned Netflix movie.

Post-Screening Ramble:

Straight up, The Broken Hearts Gallery is a delightful little movie. The plot is pretty much your basic rom-com setup – person meets person, there’s chemistry, things happen, the end – but the details here are what make it worth watching. Geraldine Viswanathan delivers a spirited performance as Lucy, a young woman with a bevy of quirks, but her character isn’t ever referred to as “not being like other girls,” which is a refreshing change of pace for movies like this. Her friends – played energetically, charmingly and hilariously by Phillipa Soo, Molly Gordon and Nathan Dales – act like real friends. The love interest, Nick (Dacre Montgomery sans his mullet and rage from Stranger Things), isn’t a monster. The subplot that deals with people discarding trinkets from past loves is adorable. Plus, people even make decisions that don’t seem insane!

And yes, it’s still a rom-com and there’s drama that creeps up and threatens to ruin all the fun, but because the foundation of The Broken Hearts Gallery is so super solid, those moments feel earned and actually carry some weight. Let’s just say this, towards the end of this movie, I turned to my wife and said “it’s time for the grand gesture,” and even though I knew it was coming (and had a solid idea as to what it would be), I still teared up like a baby when it hit. This movie got me, man.

The Broken Hearts Gallery is the best rom-com I’ve come across in a while. Seek it out!

One Last Thought:

It’s just a very small bit that’s totally inconsequential to the rest of the movie, but there’s a Barrack Obama joke that legit made me cackle. It also made me miss the guy even more than I already do.