Alexander the Last

After years in the micro-budget trenches, filmmaker Joe Swanberg (Hannah Takes the Stairs) graduates to a slightly bigger budget and a few better known actors but remains true to his earlier aesthetic. Jess Weixler stars as Alex, a Brooklyn actress working on a play with Tennessee transplant Jamie (Barlow Jacobs), while her musician husband, Eliott (Justin Rice), tours the country. When they aren't rehearsing, Alex and Jamie, who doesn't have a fixed address, hang out with her photographer sister, Hellen (Amy Seimetz). Since they're spending so much time together, Alex invites Jamie to stay at her apartment during Eliott's absence. By day, the pair fake a sexual relationship during rehearsals; by night, Jamie and Hellen pursue a real one, although the latter isn't exactly single (just on a break from her boyfriend). Alex tells the play's unnamed director (Jane Adams) that she feels she has too much chemistry with Jamie, although their off-stage exchanges remain platonic. When Eliott returns, however, new tensions emerge, exacerbated by Eliott's practice sessions with a female musician (Jo Schornikow). Co-produced by Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale), Swanberg's fifth film features the improvised dialogue characteristic of his work—meaning that some lines sink and others swim—but the acting is always believable. Recommended. (K. Fennessy)