Amstell doesn’t overly flatter his onscreen alter ego, and neither does Morgan’s beautifully shaded performance, which shows how Benjamin’s anxious sweetness and will-o’-the-wisp allure can emerge as brattish petulance in the wrong crowd or the wrong light. In a film largely, but not vainly, preoccupied with the self, that scene is a stark reminder of the hurt one’s insecurities can cause to others. Some will be fully sympathetic when he suggests unconfidently to Noah that they try “just being people,” while others will echo the eye-rolling impatience of his producer: “What is all this pain that you’re in? Are you really in pain?” Yet both camps may want to applaud when Benjamin is eventually, most emphatically, called out on his solipsism: In a blazing single-scene performance as his most recent ex-boyfriend, so expletive-laced as to be unquotable, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett all but leaves scratch marks on the screen as he pithily warns Noah that he’ll likely be discarded too. Beguiling as Noah is, thanks to Brossard’s fey, fragile performance, it’s Benjamin’s volatile relationship with himself that gives Amstell’s script its subtle tension.Īs a case study in drab everyday depression, Benjamin may divide audiences just as he divides those around him. The film might be termed a romantic comedy, though the will-they-won’t-they dynamic that usually powers the genre feels beside the point here. (Benjamin, a friend jokes, likes his lovers “weak and well-lit,” though he merits much the same description.) Despite an age difference of around a decade, Benjamin and Noah are awkward peas in a pod: They could be soulmates if they’d stop shyly talking themselves, and then each other, out of getting closer.įrom this delicate premise, “Benjamin” wrings a lot of warmly perceptive, occasionally acidic humor. Yet that’s exactly the glaring red flag Benjamin holds up when he meets Noah (Phénix Brossard), a young French musician who looks like he’s stepped out of a Saint Laurent ad, but whose inner gawkiness doesn’t match his chic exterior.
When asked what his plainly doomed new movie is about, Benjamin offers the kind of line that makes his glib, officious publicist Billie (Jessica Raine, a gin-sharp delight) despair: “It’s a film about my inability to love.” Not an elevator pitch that would pique the interest of any investor, it’s even worse as introductory small talk with a cute new guy.
It’s Amstell’s debut feature, not counting his inspired vegan-themed mockumentary “Carnage,” made in 2017 for the BBC’s iPlayer streaming service: He’ll have high expectations of his own to meet next time out. Amstell, happily, does no such thing: Appealingly restrained and perfectly shaped at under 90 minutes, “Benjamin” maintains its softly barbed wit and sweet-and-sour intimacy to the end, bringing its shambolic eponymous hero to the brink of self-realization, minus any pat platitudes or learning of lessons. In the final edit, Benjamin screws up his film, muddying a simple relationship story with pretentious, unrelated spiritual noodlings involving a Buddhist monk - to the exasperation of once-supportive critics and his no-nonsense producer (Anna Chancellor) alike.