A Case of Blue is an indie film about grief, a love from the past, and moving on with life. Stephen Schnetzer plays the lead role as Richard Flicker, a recently retired accountant, father, and grandfather. Since the film centers around Richard, it is worth commenting that Schnetzer’s performance is excellent–eliciting empathy, humor, sadness, astonishment, and compassion for his character. The original music score is catchy and coincides with Richard’s thoughts with lines like “can I go back to being me?”; “She lives in my dreams”; “Trying to get over you—don’t let me get over you”; “Carry me away to another place." A surprise is revealed at the end of the movie that helps explain Richard’s behavior.
The film begins with Richard’s retirement party at his house. Prominently displayed is a portrait of Richard and his wife Ellie (Tracy Shayne) at their 40th wedding anniversary. Ellie remains in the background, occasionally making faces at Richard’s antics. It becomes obvious the couple have been together a long time and Ellie has endured her husband’s faults with humor, sarcasm, and some unhappiness in the marriage. Following the party, Richard’s daughter and husband offer Richard a brochure on a nearby senior retirement community. He rebuffs their suggestion. Richard does, however, take his daughter up on her gift card to him for an art class in life drawing in New York City.
On the first day of drawing class, a lovely model named Amelia (Annapurna Sriram) poses nude for the class. Using charcoal, the students are given one minute to sketch the model. When Stephen sees Amelia’s face, he is shocked. Amelia looks just like an old love from his past. Richard is determined to speak with her and meets her in a café. He discovers that Amelia is the granddaughter of his old flame Marcie and explains to Amelia why they split apart. Marcie was a free spirit who opposed monogamy; Richard was old-fashioned and opposed her bohemian ways. Stephen went off to business school and his flame headed to a commune.
It’s clear Amelia is also a free spirit and Richard spends an afternoon with her while she walks a client’s golden retriever through Central Park. Amelia invites Richard to a club where her friends enjoy loud music and dancing. Richard turns down his wife’s request to accompany her to a skating competition. At the raucous Mermaid Café, Richard realizes he is out of place and accompanies Amelia back to her place where she persuades Richard to let her sketch him. After Richard sees his portrait, he comes to terms with reality and begins to move on with his life. A very human film and a strong optional purchase for public libraries looking to expand their drama and romance collections.