Sex and love, Lori wants both and to a certain extent, she has both. It’s just with two different men.

Simple, deliberate, and insightful, Eric Byler’s Charlotte Sometimes is one of the best films I have seen this year. It is the Sex, Lies & Videotape for a new generation. Hopefully, audiences will be patient enough to comprehend it.

Charlotte Sometimes gives us a few days in the life of Michael a responsible, hardworking, honest Asian American in his mid to late 20s. He lives alone but is often visited by Lori, his downstairs tenant, who seems to be more alone than Michael even though she shares a bed nightly with the hyper-sexual Justin. After unsatisfying sessions fulfilling Justin’s sexual desires, Lori escapes to Michael’s place upstairs to crash with him platonically before Cowboy Bebop or the latest Akira clone. Keep the television on, it’s time for bed.

One day, Michael makes the acquaintance of an attractive woman calling herself Darcy. Darcy is a free-spirit willing to leave a bar with Michael and sleep with him immediately. Michael resists her obvious advances wanting to get to know Darcy a little more before jumping into the sack. Michael senses something within Darcy that isn’t right, and we can tell Darcy isn’t what she appears. Besides, Michael is waiting for Lori, pining away while Lori remains divided and fickle. This is a film about being alone with the one you love living beneath you taunting you without meaning any harm and feeling bad about it all the time, not being able to do anything but feel bad, hurt.

Charlotte Sometimes understands the current twenty-something generation that approaches thirty with resentment and irresponsibility. The same old fun has become less entertaining. No longer can the empty void be filled with quick lust and strong drink. But new experiences bring on new pressures that are difficult to contain. While many choose to run away and ignore the mounting pressure, others, like Michael, revel in it, feeding from the loneliness inside until it cannot be restrained anymore.

The four central performances are dead on and telling.

Michael Idemoto as Michael is placid, blank faced, mumbling, exhibiting the moody longing of his generation. Jacqueline Kim plays Darcy with the right amount of halting uncertainty associated with a woman nearing the age of thirty, well educated, mobile, believing herself to be a deep-thinker among the simple-minded. Darcy is like that friend of yours that comes to the party high, thinking that she knows something no one else does when, in fact, everyone knows she is high, especially when she has trouble pronouncing her own name. People like Darcy are arrogant and work themselves into tough spots that no amount of rationalization can explain away.

Eugenia Yuan as Lori has the right youthful skin for the job—the playful ingénue, on the edge of discovery. In heated and tasteful sex scenes she appears nude. I was reminded of the marvelous scenes in this year’s Unfaithful where Diane Lane is perfectly captured not really in the throws of sexual release but in the grip of guilt and confusion. Yuan is youth here without clothes, stripped and displayed in a way I haven’t seen before. Later, when Darcy is bedded down the difference in style is dramatic.

Matt Westmore is the part Asian live-in, Justin, who does what feels good and can’t handle heavy thoughts. Justin is the polar opposite of the brooding Michael. Justin drives a flashy car and has trouble working with his hands unless he is in the bedroom. And even then, it is all about Justin.

Many viewers may find Charlotte Sometimes slow and call it a talky snoozer. Similar aspersions were no doubt cast at Sex, Lies & Videotape. Admittedly, this is not a film for everyone. Charlotte Sometimes caught me in the right mood, remembering the cluttered turmoil of my twenties longing for a partner and wanting it all, now. Sometimes, it is enough to have the right someone.

Jonathan W. Hickman, 2002