Missed Connections: Film Review

Romantic comedies have always kept up with changes in technology, and such is the case with Missed Connections, Martin Snyder’s low-budget feature that uses the dating website feature as a springboard for a typically convoluted tale of a couple fumbling their way towards love. Featuring charming performances and enough oddball humor to overcome its myriad plot contrivances, the film, recently showcased at the Savannah Film Festival, could strike a chord with young urbanites.

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Jon Abrahams delivers a winning performance as Josh, an IT worker at an upscale law firm who desperately seeks the attentions of beautiful lawyer Lucy (Mickey Sumner). Hacking into her email messages to a colleague, he discovers that she’s posted a “missed connection” ad in an attempt to find a handsome Brit who she literally bumped into right outside the office.

The no-nonsense Lucy had posted the ad at the urging of her friend Tess (Julia Jones), despite her suspicion that it’s “Disneyland for serial killers.” Meanwhile, Josh works his inside information to his advantage, manipulating a series of accidental encounters during which he’s able to work his scruffy charms on the resistant Lucy.

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It’s pretty formulaic stuff, but the proceedings are enlivened by genuinely funny dialogue and such oddball supporting characters as Lucy’s bohemian, pot-smoking father (played with delicious relish by David Rasche) and Josh’s fellow computer geeks (Malcom Barrett, Waris Aluwahlia), who hilariously use their technical wiles to further his romantic pursuit.

Abrahams is so appealing as the lovesick hero that one is easily willing to overlook Josh’s moral transgressions, while Sumner (the daughter of rock star Sting, in her first starring role) is so stunningly sexy that she well compensates for her character’s occasionally forced brittleness, especially in an amusing scene in which Lucy becomes drunk enough to fall into bed with Josh, only to promptly fall right out of it.  

Venue: Savannah Film Festival

Production company: Gables Entertainment

Producers: Kathy Lindboe, Alison Palmer Bourke, Martin Snyder

Cast: Jon Abrahams, Mickey Sumner, Anastasia Ganias, David Rasche, Jamie Belman, Julia Jones, Malcolm Barrett, Tamara Tunie, Waris Aluwahlia

Director: Martin Snyder

Screenwriters: Marnie Hanel, Martin Snyder

Executive producers: Tom Conigliaro, Kim Leadford

Director of photography: Paul McCarthy

Editor: Mark Mann

Production designer: Tania Biglani

Costume designer: Vanessa Port

Not rated, 100 min