THE SECOND CHANCE CINEMA

An engaged but troubled couple stumbles on a magical cinema that shows movies of their past lives.

Ellie and Drake live in a slightly whimsical world—a nameless city where you can have a fancy lunch with your agent but then drive to a smaller town where a man might ride past on a bicycle with a glass bottle of milk in the basket. A place with enough endangered vintage establishments for Ellie to make a career writing them out of obscurity. And, importantly, a place with a small cobblestone alleyway that leads to a decrepit movie theater that comes alive only once in a while for a couple that needs a push. When Ellie and Drake stumble upon it, showing a movie called The Story of You, they’re reluctant to attend the 10 screenings over 10 weeks that they’re given tickets to. Though they love each other, they have not been forthcoming about their pasts. Ellie in particular has a dark spot she wants to revisit but is afraid for Drake to see. She also, for all her professed love for places and things, has a snarky demeanor. At their first meeting, she decides that she likes Drake because he is “a beer guy without being a sports guy, a denim guy without being a horse guy.” A prickly calculation. Later, she muses that she can use their meet-cute for the article she’s meant to write about the bar in which they made their acquaintance. It’s a hard sell for something that’s meant to turn into true love and, indeed, they need the cinema to prod them into a better and more honest relationship. Eventually, they see the tragedy in Ellie’s past and she is able to reckon with it, very touchingly, with Drake by her side. But the snark is there to stay. The boutique hotel on the verge of closing that Ellie finds for a wedding venue “looks like a cake….A cake you’d never want to eat.”

The highlight here is the cinema itself: funny, beautiful, and surreal.