Carrie Pilby

A film set in New York. Carrie is nineteen and has finished Harvard. She graduated at eighteen, reads a great deal, and hardly leaves the flat. She sees nobody. To her most people are hypocrites and she keeps lists to prove it. Her therapist gives her a list. Five items: go on a date, spend New Year's Eve with someone, get a pet, make a friend, do again something you loved when young. Carrie takes it as an assignment. From there the film follows the items one by one. A newspaper advertisement, a meeting, a bookshop, a fish and a wedding. The source of the trouble is in the past. Carrie was involved with a lecturer at university and that relationship has never been discussed. Her father is in London. They speak on the phone and he does not see the state she is in. What the narrative is interested in is not intelligence but defence: Carrie's moral rigidity is not a view but a wall built to keep anyone from getting close. The supporting characters are types. The neighbour, the colleague and the men she meets are drawn with a single trait. Bel Powley carries the part. The character is honest to the point of being unpleasant and the actor does not soften it. The tone is light. The narrative moves as comedy and passes quickly over the heavy sections. The source is Caren Lissner's novel. Bel Powley, Nathan Lane, Gabriel Byrne and Vanessa Bayer are in the cast. Susan Johnson directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes bookish, sharp-tongued characters and small independent films. Who it is not for: anyone looking for something new; the structure is familiar and the change arrives ready-made once the items on the list are done.