Alone Together

I wouldn't have expected Katie Holmes to be the filmmaker who attempts to create a love story set during the early days of the pandemic. She wrote and directed this 2022 romantic dramedy. However, I would expect her to be the star since her filmmaking style draws from the same sensitivity well as her six years on "Dawson's Creek". The sensitivity of her direction and performance works to some degree, but the leaden pacing and feckless characters hamper Holmes' intention to bring a level of intimacy to COVID. There is something frustrating about watching fortyish characters act like they're dealing with twentysomething angst. Holmes, Jim Sturgess, and Derek Luke try mightily to compensate for this lapse by infusing sincerity. Only an unrecognizable Melissa Leo registers as a character actually living through the uncertainty of the pandemic.

In simple little drama "Alone Together" (Katie Holmes' first film as writer (second as director)) she's a lowly NY journo whose dickish bf Derek Luke books them a rural AirBnB as the covid lock-down strikes... but he then doesn't turn up AND it's double-booked (sigh) with Jim Sturgess (always likeable) already there. Resigning to co-habit Holmes & Sturgess hit it off (duh) but as the world shuts up can she really shut it out and live a kinda fantasy? Calm & humourless it's pretty dry, but performances are sound (inc Melissa Leo as Sturgess' mum) and Holmes' direction fresh. We still wait on an excellent covid movie, but just maybe with this they're getting SLIGHTLY better.

I quite enjoyed this movie, it describes what went on and what people went through in the city. With all the awkward moments. I remmwber thinking it was going to be two weeks, then everything shutting down, remember not being able to hug my family, staying away from friends, my building not allowing friends to come for a meal, friends dying and hearing of people passing, and working all day and stepping outside for the 7pm cheer - in my opinion it's well done. And then getting better here and worse in other countries. And if it seems slow, that's because that's how those days were. Well done!

And the love story is a nice background, or the other way around.

To those reviewers that only watch part of a movie and then rate it 1 star-that's just not fair. Look, this movie is not a major movie and it's made for a female audience. I watched the whole thing last night and found it to be a fair romance set against the backdrop of the beginning of Covid. My problem was with Katie Holmes's character talking about wanting marriage and children sometime in the future. She's 44 so unless she's adopting that's not going to happen anytime soon. I do realize you can get pregnant at that age. I just think she was trying to play someone about ten years younger and that didn't work for me. It wasn't a bad way to spend 90 minutes, it's a bit slow moving but what do you expect during a pandemic? Her grandfather who raised her died and she cried briefly and then it's barely mentioned again. That wasn't realistic. So those are my reasons for not rating it higher than 6, although I mostly enjoyed it.

It's not bad, the story is nice, and kind and warm in parts, but... there are so many cringe-worth moments in the movie that I had to watch in two parts (and I almost gave up).

It is apparent (to me, at least) that the script needed more iterations and finessing (to remove the cringe moments for starters).

Also, none of the "couples" had much chemistry, I think the movie would be much better off with slightly older (mature) male counterparts and a more relaxed and relatable relationship between them.

Maybe in a few more years, with proper distancing from the pandemic, a refined script and more time to proper audition and cast the 2 main male characters the movie could have been much better.