Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

The heart's not in this 'Love'

Jill Andresevic's documentary Love Etc. tracks five slice-of-life tales of romance won, being negotiated, and sought across a handful of New York boroughs.

Jill Andresevic's documentary Love Etc. tracks five slice-of-life tales of romance won, being negotiated, and sought across a handful of New York boroughs.

There's the bickering young Indian couple planning their wedding, the smitten octogenarian Brooklynites who've been together nearly 50 years, the divorced dad construction worker, the single gay theater director, and the SoHo teens in the blush of first love.

But there are also the timeworn "I New York" montages, the lack of spoken or observed insight into relationships, and an overall air of a superficially feel-good reality TV pilot. It's not that you don't care for these urbanites - you do, but it's in spite of Andresevic's unengaged hanging around and general air of slightness.

One is left thinking about almost anything but love: how a play comes together, 79-year-old Albert's struggles as a songwriter, why one subject's romantic prospect disappears.

Any one of these stories might have been worth fleshing out into a weightier and no less enjoyable look at city life and the search for someone to conquer it with, but as presented here it's the airiest of flipbook portraits, a skyline view of love instead of a foray into its streets, tunnels, and alleyways.EndText