Kritiken

"Lovesong" is not, and never intended to be, a large film. It immerses the audience in a small-scale drama that is strikingly formed, and yet it and films like it have been relegated to minuscule theatrical releases. It says something about filmgoers, even the art-house crowd, that these stories are so casually denied a place in cinemas. Kim’s work deserves a grand stage, even when it peddles in minutia.

“Lovesong” is a character study of this relationship, casually yet carefully sketched out by Kim in subtle but meaningful gestures and glances. Much is communicated through the eyes, searching for answers in the void of what’s not said, but felt.

["Lovesong"] settles in your head like a melancholy lyric. It doesn’t break new ground in technique or subject matter. But by staying faithful to its characters—women who make, break, and alter an intimate connection—it expresses a refreshing freedom from sexual-identity dogma and narrative formula.

Kim’s not interested in tidy resolution, and has a strong affinity for missed connections between people who know each other very well. That’s the greatest strength of “Lovesong.” It understands that if a wedding is to be the last day of two almost-lovers’ acquaintance, then it should be one full of memorable regret.

Some might accuse “Lovesong” of being slight while others will applaud its minimalism. But there is no disputing that Kim has wisely provided her two stars—both of whom she has worked with before—with enough breathing room to bring her movie to life... Let’s hope they continue to choose to do these sorts of challenging roles in smaller efforts that provide the type of big-screen showcases they deserve.

While Keough has heretofore served as a glaring distraction thanks to her noted lineage (the granddaughter of Elvis Presley), "Lovesong" is perhaps the first film to exemplify her willowy talents as an actress... She steals the film from the equally impressive Malone.

[An] exquisite, beautifully shot meditation on love clouded by fear and doubt... Ms. Keough’s soft, shy performance is as compelling as her chilling portrayal of a high-end escort in the Starz series “The Girlfriend Experience,” but completely opposite in tone. It is matched in power by Ms. Malone’s frisky but wary Mindy in a movie devoid of overt sexual politics in which “the L word” (lesbian) is never spoken.

["Lovesong"] makes no obviously false steps. But that’s mostly because it just kind of sits there, passively observing its characters, perhaps in hope that the believability of the events will automatically breed drama or a thesis or a philosophy or something. It doesn’t.

As the distance between Sarah and Mindy grows, so too does the film’s emotional resonance. But the overall effect is one of a disjointed love story that can never find the right tune, no matter how skilled its players.

So Yong Kim relies heavily on the actors and the environment to carry the narrative, which is both the strength and the major failing of “Lovesong.” The script gestures at a troubled backstory for Mindy and her mother, played by Rosanna Arquette, but those scenes feel tacked-on and empty... [and] although “Lovesong” clocks in at roughly 85 minutes, the pacing drags.

As feelings remain unexpressed or avoided, "Lovesong" grows more vaporous, even as the frame becomes increasingly cluttered with minor characters... Some of these small roles, though, give tonic weight to the movie... And despite her hazily sketched part, Keough, by calibrating the intensity of her yearning gazes, makes Sarah’s needs and appetites piercingly palpable.

Though not as direct in its appeals to the choking effects of forced domesticity in cultural conceptions of femininity as Todd Haynes’s "Carol," the film ultimately manages a convincing articulation of the complex friendship between women as a possible out from the repressive dead ends of sexual and emotional destitution.