She Came to Me has the feel of a 2000s-era quirky indie without feeling like a pandering throwback.  The characters are eccentric weirdos, the filmmaking is aware of its cleverness, the situational comedy is purposely absurd but meaningful, and it’s all in the name of romance.

Writer/director Rebecca Miller (Maggie’s Plan, The Ballad of Jake and Rose) weaves together three stories that all share a central desire to find a specific case of happiness that’s almost fanciful.  Anxiety-ridden opera composer Steven (Peter Dinklage) needs to find inspiration, his wife Patricia (Anne Hathaway) is desperate to find religious roots, and high school seniors Julian and Tereza (Evan Ellison, Harlow Jane) want each other as badly as Tereza’s stepfather Trey (Brian d’Arcy James) wants to break them up.  Whenever these characters discover their happiness, the film’s aspect ratio changes from widescreen (16:9) to fullscreen (4:3) – sometimes mid-scene – to signify a change in perspective and how these people block everything else out when they’re sincerely infatuated.

Each of these stories are able to stand alone – it’s the intersecting that’s an issue.  The mentioned performers hold our attention, but the chemistry is spotty.  For instance, Hathaway and Dinklage are great actors who bounce off each other well in a professional way, but they’re too standoffish to be a believable couple.  Other characters, like James’ neurotic stenographer who has a passion for historical reenactments, distract viewers away from the story with their own obsessive behaviours.  When Miller decides to thrust one storyline as a primary plot, the filmmaker makes a decision like an overconfident gameshow contestant looking at three unmarked doors.  I wish Steven’s side-fling with a clingy tugboat captain (Marisa Tomei) took more prominence.  Their story has more of a unique blend of fairy tale escapism and edginess.

The tangent She Came to Me turns an otherwise delightfully strange rom-com into a bizarre and uncomfortable take on modern forbidden love.  Miller’s writing creates an awkward snowball effect of unnecessary realism. Usually horror movies are the go-to source for the heebies and the jeebies this month.  I certainly wasn’t expecting to fill my creep quota from a quirky rom-com – especially one featuring a happy-go-lucky tugboat captain, no less.

**********

Do You Tweet? Follow These Tweeple:

Addison Wylie: @AddisonWylie