Charleston

A few weeks after his wife is fatally struck by a car, a grumpy chain-smoking man in his forties is celebrating his birthday drunk and alone when he receives a surprise visit. His guest is his wife’s former lover, a shy younger man having trouble coping with his own grief. Starting with a couple of punches and ending with a bittersweet handshake, Andrei Cretulescu’s wry and entertaining pas-de-deux about vulnerable masculinity and finding closure moves swiftly, and is enriched with cinephilia, black humor, vivid Technicolor-style imagery, and resonant musical choices.