Matt and Mara | Kazik Radwanski

Kazik Radwanski’s Matt and Mara is a sharp, sensitive exploration of a familiar setup: a missed connection resurfaces, and the timing isn’t great. The sneakily comedic drama doesn’t stray far from the local or personal, with its unassuming take on romantic ambivalence in the rather niche crowd of Toronto-based artists and intellectuals.

Rather than playing out dramatic conclusions, Radwanski zooms in on the mechanics of loyalty and alienation. The film begins when Mara (Deragh Campbell), who teaches creative writing to undergraduates, is surprised by a visit from an old friend. Matt (Matthew Johnson) is back in town from New York to finish a draft of his current project. Mara hasn’t published recently, but Matt has achieved some notoriety as a familiar kind of (usually male) writer. He’s known for being provocative and emotionally messy; his latest book is titled Rat King, and Mara’s work friend (the writer Emma Healey wonderfully playing herself) warns her about the implications of unleashing him on her students. Johnson is magnetic as Matt, who is undeniably likeable despite accusations that he’s schmoozy and annoying. Mara bristles when he crashes her lecture, but she can’t help but smile.

Over the course of what is assumed to be a few weeks, the two readjust to each other’s presence and cosplay as a couple, Mara all the while going home to her husband, Samir (Mounir Al Shami) and their toddler. Matt both gets under Mara’s skin and disarms her in a way her husband can’t; Mara grapples with conflicting desires. Deragh Campbell is perfect here, allowing Mara’s inner tension to manifest in a compelling patchwork of overt anger, playfulness, and iconically grumpy expressions.

The naturalistic dialogue has a psychic, anticipatory quality that makes Matt and Mara feel real. It’s clear the actors and director have an immediate grasp on the characters’ psychologies, with interactions that feel inevitable in the way that life – as opposed to plot – so often does. The 80-minute film wastes no time, with pared-back scenes that spare only the most charged, essential pivots of connection and disconnection. While cooking, Samir relays gossip about a couple cheating on each other, with the apt joke «white people would rather kill each other than break up with their partners». Mara is free associating when she responds with a hypothetical question about former friends who’ve drifted apart, which we assume pertains to her past with Matt. «Why did that pop into your mind after I told you the story?» Samir asks, naively, before the scene cuts out.

Matt and Mara lightens its cerebral overtones with subtle, pitch-perfect comedy, often physical in nature: Mara fights with a passive aggressive barista, goes a weirdly long time holding a green apple in her mouth, and gets unexpected mileage out of two emblematic sweaters. At a dinner party with Samir’s musician friends, she sternly insists she doesn’t like music, only to riff later with Matt about Jewel being “the greatest”, the two singing a few lines of “Hands” in the car. The way Campbell allows her character to relax around Matt is not only central to the plot, it’s also very fun to watch.

The film, which is predominantly made up of close-ups on its titular characters, displays an impressive restraint in moral judgement. A negative review by Sarah Manvel in Critic’s Notebook laments the “casual disregard” shown to Mara’s responsibilities as a mother, in that she doesn’t seem to have too many of them. She uses this as evidence that Radwanski, a man, has failed to realistically inhabit his female characters. (Samir is the primary stay-at-home parent, and Mara doesn’t seem particularly guilt-wracked about this). It’s true that Mara doesn’t always feel like a mother, but it’s absurd to think she should.

In a telling reveal towards the end of the film, we learn that Mara has failed to mention Matt’s existence to Samir, even after Matt steps in to drive Mara to a (relatively speaking) climactic literary conference. Not only is Samir not in on the joke, he doesn’t even know there was one. He’s the film’s biggest mystery; while Mara’s indecision crackles electrically under the surface, Samir often seems blank, open, almost daring Mara with his patience.

Ultimately, it’s Radwanski’s ability to get out his characters’ way – sparing the audience a neat takeaway in its wistful final scene – that gives Matt and Mara the emotional appeal to transcend its own small stakes. It’s this same sense of agendaless curiosity that allows Campbell and Johnson to shape much of the film around their one-of-a-kind wit and chemistry, after all, which would be worth watching even in a less successful endeavor.