Preceded by a short.

PLEASE NOTE THIS PERFORMANCE TAKES PLACE AT THE STEAM MILL.

With its insightful look at relationships, this small British comedy actually bears comparison with Woody Allen's masterpiece Manhattan . The layered performances work perfectly with the bristling, honest script.

David (Mangan) is commitment-phobic, visibly panicking at the M word. So he splits up with long-term girlfriend Lisa (Lynch) because "she doesn't get me", and pursues the colourful Nina (Belmont). But now Nina has someone else, and David turns to his friends for support, although both of them are having issues as well: Matt (Coghill) is trying to overcome his shyness by joining a dating agency, and Michael (Dingwall) is struggling with his wife (Fry) and kids. So it might not be a good idea for David to take Michael's sister-in-law (Piechowiak) home with him.

Every scene in this film is funny, awkward and fairly painful as we recognise each situation as something excruciatingly real. But instead of going for Office -like postmodern satire, Spector plays this out with a bracing rawness. The comedy is so earthy that it's completely integrated into each line of dialog. We smile throughout the film, even though the story itself is fairly sobering--people straining to find happiness amid all their own terrible decisions.

Mangan is terrific in the central role, offering with his expressive eyes a completely different (truer?) character than his words would suggest. We can see him squirming through every scene, trying to maintain his bravado and hide his desperation under a layer of bone-dry wit. The tension with the people around him is hilariously understated, but almost overpowering at the same time. And this balance makes David both pathetic and thoroughly engaging.

Spector holds the film together with a sure hand, focussing on the interaction between the characters with telling directorial touches. This is an astute, low-key examination of the nature of relationships--are they defined by feeling right, by the small moments, by whether we settle for second best, by the work we put into them? As David and his friends go back and forth, Spector astutely and subtly reveals what they're really after--something they're perhaps not ready to admit to themselves. A beautiful, moving, thoroughly entertaining little gem.