It is difficult to obtain a nice film in my country (I am in Finland), so I get most of the films I want from my friends or from DVD rip torrent sites. I got a difficult copy of This Space Between Us from a Torrent site, so it is skipping in some places, which is frustrating. This is a great movie.
I saw this movie after I saw The Waitress movie, and it is very strange to see Jeremy in this after the role he played in The Waitress. He is an amazing actor. I am surprised to be comparing the 2 films. They are so different, and yet the themes are similar. You will forgive me for making many comparisons in my review. Both movies are about someone trying to find faith and courage in the face of adversity, about rediscovering your identity, and about the difficulty to move forward to the unknown rather than lingering in a life that is familiar, but is bad for you.
In the Waitress he plays a very insecure, domineering man with an unhappy wife who wants to leave him. He is a redneck in that film, kind of tacky. He wears muscle shirts. He is a big dumb Southern jock.
After that, I watched This movie, and again I say, amazing actor. He plays a young man in San Francisco. He plays a married man again, but the big difference is he is widowed. His wife was killed. Unlike in The Waitress, this couple had a good happy marriage, but it is cut short. Now this young man, Alex, is alone and cannot overcome her death.
Both of the films are romantic comedy with very affecting drama. In The Waitress, Jeremy Sisto is the bad guy, so the wife, Jenna, is the hero that you vote for, hoping her to win freedom from the oppression of Earl (Sisto).
In The Space, Alex is the hero. You hope for him to win against what is keeping him down, that is, the sadness and loss of identity and self. His happiness is gone and he has no desire to make films anymore. He lives in the past with his lovely wife and is numb to the present.
When you think of Jenna from The Waitress movie, you see something similar. She hates her life with Earl, yet maybe the unknown is too scary to venture out there and live on her own. She does not have desire for sex with her husband anymore, and seems numb to the world around her. One day she falls in love with her obstetrician and her life wakes up so to speak.
Alex is like Jenna in many ways. He is very alone and unhappy. The movie does not say if he has a family, but he does have some friends in San Francisco, so he goes there to visit with them. They help him not by giving him advice, but by showing him that their lives are not perfect either. Alex's becomes reaquainted with a woman named Zoe who lives in the same neighborhood as when they were kids.
Zoe is like Dr. Pomatter in The Waitress: she encourages Alex to look at who he is. She is gentle and kind and somewhat different than his other friends, and therefore of more help to him. She gets him to open up about his sadness over his wife. Like Dr. Pomatter, she helps him believe in himself. Like in The Waitress, Alex, the hero, has his life reawakened from being dead and numb, by the friendship and kindness of Zoe, and they become lovers. My only disappointment of this is that after Zoe did so much help for Alex, she is gone and the story doesn't mention her much again. She is an important part of the film, for role she plays in Alex's life.
Jeremy Sisto is a really great actor. Again, in The Waitress, he looks like a big redneck and has a terrible temper and ugly persona. In The Space, he is very attractive and refined, of a gentle class. He pouts a lot in the film, but does so prettily (with lips like that, I don't complain). The only time he breaks a sweat is when he chases a runaway car down a hill. What a contrast.
Both films are filled with casual conversation and real-life comedy as well. This is a very excellent film. It was a joy to watch after The Waitress, to see Jeremy Sisto in 2 very dissimilar roles. And to vote for him as the hero after seeing him play such a nasty and mean villain in the other story.
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