"The Broken Hearts Gallery" - Film Review
In the credits for The Broken Hearts Gallery, writer/director Natalie Krinsky thanks “all the boys who broke my heart and the friends who put me back together.” As much as this film is a romantic comedy, it is more a love story about friends. Lucy (Geraldine Viswanathan), Amanda (Molly Gordon), and Nadine (Phillipa Soo) are the kind of lovingly chaotic best friends who tell it like it is, get you out of bed when you’re depressed, and support you on the best days and the worst days. Viswanathan, Gordon, and Soo have a genuine chemistry that effortlessly sells the friendship.
Lucy dreams of opening and running an art gallery. As the movie begins, she’s an assistant at celebrity curator Eva Woolf’s (Bernadette Peters) gallery, where she lets her friend-with-benefits, Max (Utkarsh Ambudkar), take credit for all of her hard work. At an opening-night party at the gallery, Max ends his relationship with Lucy because she wants to become more serious and he wants it to remain the way it is. This sends her into a downward spiral, and as she rushes to escape the party, she mistakes Nick’s (Dacre Montgomery) car for the Uber she called. Lucy climbs in and starts unloading all of her drama to the driver. When she discovers paint cans on the backseat, Lucy realizes that this is not her Uber. She talks with Nick and learns that he is trying to open a boutique hotel. She offers free labor in exchange for gallery space.
Reeling from her break-up with Max, Lucy decides to use the gallery space in Nick’s hotel to showcase relics from her past break-ups. She posts the idea on social media and asks people to send remnants of their own past relationships. Things as small as neckties and as large as used leg casts are donated as followers embrace a way to celebrate and remember what is meaningful to them. Even when the relationships fade, people cling to mementos to immortalize the feelings they once shared. It’s not necessarily because they want to rekindle the romance, but more to remember the depths of what they once felt.
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The Broken Hearts Gallery is tooth-numbingly sweet, just like all the great rom-coms that have come before it. It’s the kind of movie that makes the world seem a little brighter. The people watching it who are already in relationships can cuddle up with their partners, and the single folks hope for one more chance at love. It is unashamed in its optimism, a trait that more movies should embrace. Too often, there is cynicism, both in fiction and real life, and it takes a certain type of strength to remain hopeful in a dark world.
Released to very little fanfare because of the Covid-19 pandemic, The Broken Hearts Gallery should have been received with the same love as Netflix’s To All the Boys I Loved Before. While it may have been hindered by its lack of presence on streaming services, The Broken Hearts Gallery is truly a hidden gem. Those who are lucky enough to stumble upon it are guaranteed to be charmed.
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