One of the most common questions I get from people is, “Can you just turn off your brain and watch a movie?” I get it. For a lot of people, perhaps more these days, movies are nothing more than content.* Like a thirty second Tiktok or a five minute YouTube video,, they’re thought of as purely disposable entertainment. It’s a pity, because despite the far shorter length, TikToks and YouTube videos are made with a wide variety of skill, intent and creativity, just like movies. 

Anyway, the short answer to that original question is, no. The slightly longer answer is that I’ve developed two trains of thought that run simultaneously. The first one is the critic brain. That one is more concerned about analysis, structure, and intent. Do the themes work? Are there character arcs? Am I watching the movie the filmmaker set out to make, or did they whiff it? The second is the viewer brain. Am I enjoying what I’m watching? Am I engaging emotionally with it? Am I caught up in the story? Do I relate to the characters?

You might think that sounds exhausting. Like any habit, it’s one I’ve observed for so many years that it’s become normal to me. I’m telling you this because I want you to understand my reaction to This Is Your Song, an indie film about the bitter end of a marriage. It’s a film made with keen intelligence and rare skill. It’s also a film I never want to see again.

We’re introduced to Jules (Briana Walsh), a stage actor in San Francisco. She’s good at it, and happily, she loves both the process of acting and the stage itself. She concludes a monologue, the final scene in the final run of a play she performs in. The audience applauds rapturously. Jules beams. This is the final time in the film that she looks fully happy.

From there, Jules drifts backstage. She congratulates her co-star. She hangs out with her friend Penny (Joanna Kay) and learns that Penny plans to relocate to Los Angeles. Would Jules like to join her? Their vague plans are vaguely made, and we learn that Jules’ acting ambitions won’t be satisfied In San Francisco. Los Angeles is a better bet, and New York City is better, still.

From there, Jules and Penny drift into a bar. They drink, they chat, and Daniel (Edward Hightower) picks that moment to chat up Jules. He tells her he owns the bar, no, he actually owns the building the bar is located in. While Daniel is an older man, he’s charismatic and erudite. Would Jules like to join him at a dinner party? The look on her face says that, even in a slight way, she considers it. She goes no further when her husband, James (Jordan Potch), arrives.

And *deep breath* from there, Jules and James make their way back to what is, I’m sure, an insanely unaffordable apartment. It’s their seventh anniversary. The odds are great there won’t be an eighth. Over the course of the evening, they’ll argue, fight, reveal secrets, lob accusations, beg forgiveness, passionately declare their love for one another and immediately rescind said declarations. Just like a modern marriage.

It bears mentioning that director Hassan Said has achieved something remarkable with This Is Your Song. It features a single shot that lasts ninety-seven minutes, the longest continuous shot in film history. If that were all he’d done, it would be impressive. Said has made a film that plunges us into the highly specific intimacies of a marriage. We’re trapped there, and during those ninety-seven minutes, we learn everything we need to know about them. For example, watch the sequence where Jules reveals something to James in excruciating detail. Said and cinematographer Peggy Peralta lock onto Jules in a medium close-up, then the camera pitilessly shifts to James for his reaction. The blocking, camera work, and editing are so subtle and precise, it effectively portrays the rising and falling emotion. 

Have screenwriters Said and Lourdes Figueroa written a love story? Yes, but not in the “love conquers all” sense. In an emotional sense, we spend ninety-seven minutes watching Jules and James kick each other and themselves in the balls repeatedly. Said and Figueroa show how love ebbs, flows, and curdles. The common wisdom in screenwriting is to show, don’t tell, and this script has taken that to heart. How Jules and James are characterized, how they talk to and about each other tells us everything we need to know at any given moment without spelling everything out. 

This film wouldn’t work without capable actors, ones who can sustain punishing emotional beats. I suspect Briana Walsh and Jordan Potch must have trusted one another a great deal. Both of them give complex, brave, and intelligent performances. With Potch, he shifts effectively between terror over losing Jules, volcanic anger, desperation, and perhaps subconscious resentment? I say that because we learn James has tried for years to become a professional writer. It hasn’t worked, and he’s decided to take a job as a copywriter for a tech company. All this while Jules continues to commit to her love of theater. Walsh’s Jules is really the lead, and her performance is magnetic and sophisticated. Remember the sequence I mentioned earlier, where Jules reveals something shocking? Walsh shows us Jules’ guilt, relief over unburdening herself, enthusiasm as she marinates in her memories, and a sprinkling of glee as she pulverizes James. Walsh and Potch show us that Jules and James aren’t good or bad people. They’re just people, messy, complicated, and flawed.

My critic brain adored This Is Your Song, and that part of me thinks you should see it to witness top tier filmmaking. My viewer brain…well, I didn’t have a great time with this one. Part of it was my sense that, while I could certainly relate to Jules and James, I didn’t particularly like them. An accusation from Jules that James betrayed his bohemian principles earned an audible eye roll from me. Both of them stubbornly live in a bubble, a deeply annoying one, in which they have the freedom to not engage with the world, only their world. Another reason I didn’t enjoy myself is that as a guy who experienced divorce, I’m not eager to re-experience it.**

The mistake so frequently made is that characters in films need to be likable. This is wrong, and This Is Your Song proves it. Between the precision-engineered direction, the perceptive script, and the fearless performances, we experience a few hours in the lives of two unique and interesting people. In a world where more films than ever are focused on spectacle and IP, This Is Your Song is the proof that films can and should be art.

*For the record, I hate the term “content.”

**Luckily, marriage number two is going strong.

Tim Brennan Movie Critic

Tim has been alarmingly enthusiastic about movies ever since childhood. He grew up in Boulder and, foolishly, left Colorado to study Communications in Washington State. Making matters worse, he moved to Connecticut after meeting his too-good-for-him wife. Drawn by the Rockies and a mild climate, he triumphantly returned and settled down back in Boulder County. He's written numerous screenplays, loves hiking, and embarrassed himself in front of Samuel L. Jackson. True story.