Daniel Auerbach

When a writer directs and stars in his own movie (even if the closing credits acknowledge others who helped with the script), the trap of self-indulgence is wide open. Even more so when it's the writer's long-awaited second feature film and it's about trying to write a long-awaited second feature film - which is how the plot of this one was publicized.

But it's about rather more than the struggling writer as struggling writer. It does have touches of self-indulgence - for example, some needlessly long takes, and a couple of stunning young women who fall for the protagonist without any strong reason - but it's more about the big question of how to participate in the world.

As the movie starts, the protagonist as a young student asks why God bothered to create and populate the world in the first place. As an adult, he goes on asking tough questions and you may start wondering (as I did) whether the script is just a way for the writer to put his collected aphorisms before the public. But it turns out that the protagonist's questioning is also a way of trawling for someone he can connect with, because his relationship with other individuals, with society, and with the passage of time is a problem for him. Aha, we of the third millennium can't help saying, he's on the spectrum.

The movie jumps back and forth in time somewhat, and I hope I'm not committing a spoiler if I say that the resolution involves an incident that helps the protagonist position himself on the timeline.