And While We Were Here | Review

HereToFore: Coiro’s Latest Stale, Blatant Exercise

Actress turned director Kat Coiro reunites with Kate Bosworth for her sophomore feature, And While We Were Here, leaving behind the situational comedy from their previous venture, L!fe Happens for a somber hearted travel brochure of a couple’s dismantling. While everyone involved seems to be taking great pains to remain understated, there’s a surprising lack of nuance, and Coiro’s screenplay churns like a mealymouthed derivative of any number of similarly themed vehicles.

On the island of Ischia, located off Italy’s Amalfi Coast, Jane (Kate Bosworth) accompanies her husband Leonard (Iddo Goldberg) on a business trip. She’s a struggling writer from the States, while he’s a successful viola player. For years now, Jane has been working on writing a novel recounting her grandmother’s (the voice of Claire Bloom) experiences in WWII Britain, and she spends time listening to endless amounts of recordings for inspiration. Her relationship with Leonard is awkwardly tense, and we slowly learn that they may have lost a child not long ago. Left to her own devices, Kate explores the beauty of the island, and runs into a fellow American, 19 year old Caleb (Jamie Blackley), whose explanation for being on the island is dubious, at best. Slowly, Jane finds herself drawn to Caleb, and it’s not long before she’s engaged in an illicit affair with the vibrant youth. But more complications aren’t exactly what the rather melancholy Jane needs at the moment, and soon she must make some tough decisions.

Despite its anemically poetic and instantly forgettable title, And While We Were Here isn’t a terrible film. On the plus side, it features a likeable performance from Bosworth, who seems to be increasingly drawn to difficult, off the map indie features. If only every aspect of the film wasn’t ridiculously transparent, with the film’s weakest link being the handling of Leonard, a supremely ignorant dullard that isn’t granted any redeeming qualities, traipsed around like some overused Karenin model as the hopelessly selfish, utterly void of emotion repressor.

On the technical side, the film, which was initially B&W but is being presented in color, it almost goes without saying, is beautiful to behold, even as it lazily depends on too much sun-soaked montage to relate the messy romance between the depressed Jane and irresponsible drifter Caleb. The expressive voice of Claire Bloom cuts through the proceedings like a specter from some more relevant story, but the added texture feels far removed from the film at hand. A timeless motif, the change and growth precipitating the end of stagnant or unhealthy relationships becomes rote and assumed in Coiro’s film. More successful examples don’t depend on dead babies and conveniently tossed aside younger lovers, like any number of Anna Kareninas have shown us, or Ingrid Bergman in Goodbye Again or several Michelle Williams examples (Blue Valentine/Take this Waltz), etc.