Leonard Kraditor is suddenly torn between two women. Following a failed suicide attempt, he meets Sandra, the daughter of his father’s new business partner, at a family dinner, and soon after that he meets Michelle, his new-to-the-building upstairs neighbour, in the stairwell outside his parents’ apartment. These two women could not be more different, but Leonard is drawn to them both, and Gray gradually establishes contrasting routines for Leonard’s interactions with each of them in turn.
Sandra is always shown as having already arrived at her destination. She and Leonard spend time together at her brother’s bar mitzvah and later at a restaurant in Brighton Beach, and both times Gray starts the scene mid-way through. Sandra is a reliable presence in Leonard’s life. If she’s meant to be somewhere, that’s where she is, and Gray never shows her in transit. There are no variables with Sandra. No traffic jams or late trains, no bad signal or flat batteries. No room for excuses. By contrast, Michelle operates on her own schedule. She makes Leonard wait for her, first abandoning him at a club before arriving late at a restaurant with Ronald, and she demands his time whenever she needs it, texting or calling him at all hours to ask for his advice. She’s always in two minds, and Gray tends to show her on her feet, pacing around, never fully at ease but keeping her options open, ready to move if she needs to.
After building these patterns of behaviour, Gray brings this triangular relationship to a point of culmination on New Year’s Eve, with Leonard and Sandra embracing on a sofa. Gray provides alternating close-ups: Sandra looks overcome with happiness, while Leonard, his face partially obscured by her hair, doesn’t seem to share her excitement. Then Gray cuts to a wide shot, slowly pulling back as the couple remain motionless on the sofa. An exercise bike sits unused in the background, an image of static momentum to underline the stillness of this embrace. A middle ground between Michelle’s desire to move around and Sandra’s grounded stability. Is Leonard compromising, or has he finally found happiness? Has he made a choice or has it been made for him? A wonderful image of ambiguity to conclude a wonderfully ambiguous film.