[pryor15]

Last Night with Riviera

It's a well-worn path... but he manages to encourage people to look at the scenery differently, while paying tribute to those who've walked it before him.

With a great ear for dialogue he captures the awkwardness of the first date: the shifting glances, the social niceties, the body language, the right words which elude us when we most need them. We've all been there, and the realism of the dialogue and its delivery make it impossible for us not to relate.

...

Like the best films about intimacy, it draws you in close but leaves out enough that you can project your own hopes and fears onto the characters. This allows for conflicting sympathies and ensures that not everyone in the audience relate with the characters in the same way. Loneliness is a mysterious beast, hard to tame. Resisting the tentation to simplify, gravida invites us to ponder the complexity of the choices we make, the unreliability of human connections.