It’s unclear when, specifically, the phrase “quarter-life crisis” entered the cultural lexicon, but those words do find their way into the screenplay of “Middle Life,” a film attempting to capture a period in a woman’s life when this phenomenon appears to be taking place—even if depicting what’s actually driving it proves a little more difficult.
“Middle Life” largely revolves around Andie (Leah Fay Goldstein), a woman presumably in her mid-to-late 30s with a son, Leon, a husband, Chris (Luke Lalonde), and a wedding-planning business that, as Andie tells a friend only minutes into the film, has had an unusually slow year. Through an unusual twist of fate, she meets Ryan (Peter Dreimanis), who’s just been involved in a car accident with his father in tow. Andie, who happens to be walking by shortly after the accident, manages to save them both.
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Not long afterward, while out with friends at a nearby restaurant, the two randomly encounter each other again. Ryan has recovered from the accident, as has his dad, and, happy to see Andie, decides the appropriate repayment for her selfless act is to take her out to dinner. To Andie’s credit, she doesn’t keep this “date” from Chris, who’s surprisingly agreeable, even if he finds the situation somewhat odd.
The subsequent dinner sees Andie and Ryan hit it off immediately, and that same night, Ryan—revealed to be the spontaneous type—asks if crashing a nearby house party would be an enjoyable next step. Surprisingly, Andie agrees. The chemistry between the two becomes all the more apparent, while a UTI-esque medical condition Ryan mentioned over dinner manifests for the first time. It’s the beginning of a recurring plot device, immediately followed by the reveal that Andie, who hadn’t been wearing her wedding ring and told Ryan it was being resized, had actually stashed it in her purse the entire time. What could it mean?
It’s also the beginning of a blossoming friendship between Ryan and Andie, where every time they get together, the evening ends with Andie asking Ryan, “So, what now?” The spur-of-the-moment Ryan seems to be awakening something in Andie, and it’s around this time, while getting together with her friend Beth (Norah Sadava), that someone finally asks whether Andie might be going through a quarter-life crisis. Andie humorously responds, “Do you expect that I’m going to live until 140?”
Eventually, Andie decides it’s time for Ryan and Chris to meet. But an evening at Andie and Chris’ apartment, where the couple wants to make Ryan dinner, quickly turns awkward, starting with the gift Ryan, a plumber, has brought with him. One of his main lines of business is installing bidets, and after bringing one for the host couple, his insistence on installing it that same night ends up springing a leak in their toilet. Despite being able to repair it with Andie’s assistance, the whole episode leaves a bad taste in Chris’ mouth, and he asks Andie not to see Ryan anymore.
A reluctant Andie agrees. By this point, there’s no question about the tension between the three, and though Ryan and Andie eventually meet again, things don’t exactly proceed in a very good direction for either of them.
Across the board, every performance is as committed as it gets, with Dreimanis giving Pete Davidson vibes in nearly every way, to the point where it’s not hard to envision Davidson inhabiting the role. And while Ryan could initially be seen as something of a manic pixie dream guy, arriving to kick-start Andie’s “rebirth,” there’s more to him than that. His scenes away from Andie reveal that although his father physically recovered from the accident, mentally, it’s a different story.
That said, the story could have benefited from more groundwork explaining why Andie feels the way she does from the jump. Is it her struggling business? Her apparent lack of connection with Chris? There are scenes where she discusses these issues, particularly her relationship with Chris, but given how little backstory is revealed, more would be welcome.
And although all signs point toward Ryan and Andie potentially going further than friendship, Chris remains in the picture for a substantial portion of the story, and the palpable feeling that such a leap shouldn’t happen can’t be ignored. Despite both leads possessing genuine chemistry throughout, director Pavan Moondi pulling back the reins makes for an interesting choice. Until nearly the final moments, “Middle Life” could almost be seen as a rom-com, except the rom portion only receives a tease.
If anything, this is more of a light comedy and quirky drama. Strangely, it’s also divided into chapters, each carrying the title of a line from the subsequent scene, an interesting filmmaking choice that never feels especially necessary.
Nevertheless, “Middle Life” is an inoffensive jaunt overall, one where it’s hard to deny wanting to see where things might be headed for Ryan and Andie and whether our heroine can figure out whatever it is she needs to figure out. It’s clear they’re different people, just as it’s clear Andie becomes someone different when she spends time with Ryan. Why she needs that transformation, however, remains less clear.
Much like the Canadian setting, which largely exists as background scenery, the deeper reasons for Andie’s dissatisfaction remain just out of reach. Without more insight into her restlessness, “Middle Life” settles comfortably into being a light, breezy watch that does what it can to tie everything together by the end—even if its central crisis remains a little underexplored. [B]
Brian Farvour is a film/television critic and entertainment journalist whose work has also appeared on Fandomwire. He previously co-hosted The Playlist Podcast.
