She is Love review – she is not very interesting

An 82-minute runtime can make for a real tonic in an age of drawn-out content, and yet the runtime of this underpowered blend of drama and comedy still feels like it's about half an hour too long. She is Love is a relationship story, or a quasi-love triangle, in which one of the three parties doesn't seem all that bothered about what actually happens. Despite a few insightful moments and some funny exchanges, you're bound to feel similarly about what is an excessively loose offering from the British filmmaker Jamie Adams.

Haley Bennett plays a talent scout named Patricia who, by complete chance, or perhaps contrived by a means we never quite understand, winds up taking a room at the Cornwall boutique hotel where her ex-husband Idris (Sam Riley) lives and works with his much younger girlfriend Louise (Marisa Abela). We quickly realise from her vodka-swigging and pill-popping that Patricia is in the midst of some sort of mid-life crisis, and it's a state she soon draws Idris into after her appearance inadvertently knocks him off the wagon. They quickly descend into a long night of drinking and reminiscing, while in an alternate thread, like something out of a sitcom, Louise – an aspiring actress – attempts to learn her lines for a recently coveted part.

The performances aren't really the problem (though Abela, who is set to play Amy Winehouse in an upcoming biopic, is the standout of the three) – more the lack of focus. After twenty minutes the sense of momentum shrivels, along with our interest in what happens to any of these characters. The Louise plot, though mildly amusing, feels like padding (basically unheard of in an 82-minute film), while an unearned end-of-movie montage flashing through “iconic” moments from the film we just saw inadvertently provokes laughter rather than the intended catharsis.

The film, mostly improvised from an outline (and increasingly seeming like it), yields too little reward; when Idris tells Patricia things like “You inspired me,” you wonder why that part wasn't left in the movie for us to witness. Patricia and Idris are supposed to be falling back into their old ways, but their supposed natural patter feels a bit forced: you can't really imagine the pair having once been married in the first place. It's a shame because there's clearly enough talent in the room to have conjured up something more memorable – what's missing is somebody who knows how to make the most of it.

She is Love is released in UK cinemas on 3 February.