Much like Netflix’s anthology series Easy and the buddy comedy Platonic on Apple TV+, Matt and Mara is a micro-scaled drama, with humourous moments, that unpacks a fractured relationship.

Deragh Campbell and Blackberry’s Matt Johnson, reunited with Anne at 13,000 Ft. writer/director Kazik Radwanski, portray writers who have followed separate paths. As Matt in the movie, Johnson plays an ambitious published writer who, while visiting Toronto, reconnects with former friend Mara (Campbell). Mara has since settled down with her musician husband Samir (Mounir Al Shami) and now teaches creative writing at a university. Using a narrative that’s presumably open to improvisation, Radwanski casts the audience as a quiet observer, while Matt and Mara reflect on the past, criticize each other, and have a laugh every once in a while. Hanging around each other reignites curiousities, including romantic feelings, and we see this eat away at Mara as she prepares for an upcoming writer’s keynote in Niagara Falls.

Matt and Mara is a unique character study that wants the viewer to read between the lines. The film’s form is loose, but maintained well. Even when the beginning of a scene enters during one of Matt and Mara’s conversations, movie goers don’t feel as if we’ve missed any context. However, despite how deliberate the unraveling of information is in Matt and Mara, the film could’ve revealed more about its characters. Shows like Easy and Platonic can afford to stretch out these arcs because they’re working within a format that allows gradual build-ups. With a feature-length structure, Radwanski could’ve streamlined this process and challenged his actors with meatier attributes with larger risks; rather than recycling Mara’s career and marital uncertainties, or ignoring the possibilities of a deeper backstory driving Matt’s renegade work and moral ethics.

Campbell and Johnson have terrific chemistry, though, and the manner in which they egg each other on is fun and interesting. They even have an eerie sense of simpatico during scenes with amateur performers, such as when they pose as a married couple for a congenial convenience store owner or when Matt’s tangents risk railroading a discussion about honest art in Mara’s class. This controlled momentum is also possible because Radwanski, as a filmmaker, is sharp and patient. Unlike other directors who throw everything at the wall in search for a kernel of significance, Radwanski has an undeniably superb skill set that enables him to know where the finish line is, and how long it should take for his story to arrive there.

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