Alone Together

Grade: B-

Katie Holmes is an underrated actress, I think. Dawson’s Creek was a series with peaks and valleys, and covered a lot of ground in its 6 seasons. Holmes and the rest of the main cast were there every step of the way, maintaining and sustaining their commitment and energy to these characters that we lived with for more than half a decade. Michelle Williams has 4 Oscar nominations under her belt, but otherwise, the cast hasn’t had much recognition.

I was reminded of this while watching Alone Together – written, directed, and starring Holmes. It begins in a not-too-distant past that we all remember. 2020 – the middle of March. We hear the old familiar buzzwords: global pandemic. Social distancing. Flatten the curve. Coronavirus. She plays June, a Manhattan food critic. She and her boyfriend John were supposed to spend a week at an Airbnb in upstate New York, but he decides to stay with his parents, as travel bans, lockdowns, and business shutdowns are beginning to happen left and right. June finally arrives at the house (via Lyft, after she couldn’t catch a train) to find that the Airbnb has been double-booked, and the occupant already there is a down-to-earth scruffy nice guy named Charlie. He volunteers to sleep on the couch downstairs and lets her have the bedroom. It looks like there should be well more than one bedroom in a house that size, but never mind.

Throughout its top-heavy first two acts, it settles into a routine to the point where I started wondering if something new shouldn’t start happening soon. A third-act conflict is arbitrarily provided to us, almost as a courtesy. The audience grows to love Charlie (and Charlie and June together) so much. When John shows up, he is a bit of a wet blanket in the same exact ways that Charlie is a dream. We can feel the manipulation from the screenplay. John is played by Holmes’s Pieces of April co-star Derek Luke, and Charlie is played to great effect by Jim Sturgess (21, Across the Universe).

I’ve grown very weary of movies with “I don’t want to talk about it” moments. Honesty is beautiful, and it is infinitely more pleasing and productive when characters just come right out with what’s on their mind, rather than hold back information we already know, that will show up later in a melodramatic reveal. My favorite scene was one close to the end, with Charlie and his mother (Melissa Leo). You’ll know exactly which one it is when you see it, and I bet it will be the gem of the film for you, too.

Amid all this, though, Holmes and Sturgess sell their roles, even if her own script isn’t always doing them the best favors. It’s a little heavy-handed, but Alone Together could mark part of an interesting beginning of a trend: romantic dramedies set in the COVID-19 era.

Grade: B-