As I prepare my list of favorite Chicago releases of 2017, I’ve been looking at lists that other critics have started posting online. I’ve yet to find one that mentions Azazel Jacobs’s The Lovers, which was one of the highlights of my moviegoing year. (If you missed the film in theaters, it’s now available on DVD.) The Lovers exudes generosity and a delight in filmmaking in every scene—watching it just makes me feel good. Perhaps the film’s modesty has kept it off year-end lists. The Lovers doesn’t appear to be more than a relaxed character comedy about bland middle-class people, and the banal settings (suburban townhomes and office buildings) add to its unassuming veneer. Yet the movie conjures a certain wonderment regardless, depicting the transformative power of romantic love with a fittingly romantic style.
The other characters in The Lovers are just as interesting as Michael and Mary. Jacobs realizes them sympathetically and with the same comic imagination he brings to the leads. Mary’s lover, Robert (Aidan Gillen) is tender but impatient; he wants Mary all to himself. In this regard he’s a lot like Michael’s lover, Lucy (Melora Walters), but Jacobs isn’t so schematic in how he paints these two characters. Lucy is more spontaneous than Robert, and she seems to have a better sense of humor. Yet both come across as well-rounded adults who’ve figured out how to balance their creative aspirations with their normal lives. Joel (Tyler Ross) is mature in certain ways too. When Jacobs introduces him, he’s displaying tenderness toward his girlfriend Erin (Jessica Sula); he seems to delight in having a warmer relationship than what he thinks his parents have.
