This is one movie I can easily recommend anyone to see. Goes
to show that low budget does not necessarily equal low quality.
Realistic story with very convincing acting. Lots of facial close-ups show every nuance of expression. I've seen lots of movies but never one as gritty, close up, personal and day-to-day as this one.
Story covers a three week period in lower Manhattan covering the lives of 6 or 7 forty-something friends during a summer heatwave. The main character Ray is a talented headhunter who can't take his job seriously, arriving to work in shorts and worn T-shirt, professional on the phone, cuts out early to lounge in Central Park with the NY Daily News and gets paid in cash. His sister Linda arrives from the West Coast to visit, her marriage not going so well. Our headhunter is also newly married to a Columbian immigrant, who speaks no English, for the admitted sole purpose of gaining her US citizenship. Needless to say, Ray speaks no Spanish. The story unfolds as relationships are built and reshaped amid this cast of seemingly aimless and amoral characters. Linda gets involved with old flame Harlan who is fighting a losing war with heroine and gradually drags Linda in with him. Ray's "wife" gets a job as a Spanish phone sex worker in his apartment. She quickly tires of Ray and finds another lover, Spanish speaking, who she gives her paycheck to and who wants her to run away to Madrid with him, until Ray eventually finds out. Several other sub-plots unfold amid this array of characters, and one feels for them, but can't get too involved or concerned because they are bringing it upon themselves. Ray also suffers from a mysterious illness for which he has no official health insurance. In addition, he is mugged and assaulted by a "home boy" on the sidewalk. Another unique sub-plot involves a gay relationship between an older black male main character and a twentysomething white man on the beach, and later at the black man's apartment. The story shifts frequently between relationship sub-plots and the drug use and sex is fairly graphic.
