LOST HOLIDAY is a French New Wave-style screwball detective story...imagine BAND OF OUTSIDERS meets THE THIN MAN...or maybe more on the nose: MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY for Millennials. (Sorry, that's probably too trite, I know.)
Kate Lyn Sheil gives yet another masterful performance as a completely original female character we've never seen on screen before (Nicole Holofcener should write something for KLS immediately). And she's match perfectly with the churlish Thomas Matthews...in a truly platonic, trope-defying relationship that lives in the chemistry of actual BFFs...again, something that wouldn't even occur to a lesser filmmaker.
The rest of the cast is a who's who of "that guys"...faces you might not expect to see in a low budget affair like LOST HOLIDAY (or in a movie at all: David Corn?!). Each bringing a fresh energy to the proceedings: William Jackson Harper as the love lost, Allie Gallerani as his impossibly perfect fiance, Ismenia Mendes as the entitled victim of circumstance...I really can't say enough for the performances co-directors Thomas and Michael Matthews get out of these folks.
Look, LOST HOLIDAY may not be your thing. There is certainly an anarchist spirit to the film-at least in the way the brothers Matthews insist on both honoring and subverting the genre...sometimes within the same scene-that can make an audience member feel like maybe they aren't in on the joke. But still...by doggedly holding on to this fresh and unusual vision, this isn't a film you won't want to miss.
