Space and Time: Metaphysically Minded Romance Offers Little More Than the Bummer of their Discontent

By Thom Ernst

Rating C

Space and Time is the first feature film from Toronto director and writer, Shawn Gerrard. It’s the most natural next-step in Gerrard’s career, considering his notable success as a short-film maker, coupled with his hands-on experience in just about every level there is to filmmaking. 

But Space and Time is misleading, both in the title and in execution. The title sounds like a Carl Sagan inspired Ted Talk (and indeed, there is a reference to Ted Talks) but with a vibe of a (Mark) Duplass-level weird romance. The title is actually—and quite effectively—straightforward.  It’s about a couple who need exactly that: Space and Time.  She needs space, he needs time. It’s no more complicated than that. 

Siobhan (Victoria Kucher) and Sean (Steven Yaffee) play it cool with their romance in chilly Toronto

Siobhan (Victoria Kucher) and Sean (Steven Yaffee) celebrate their seventh year together. Their plan is to spend the night on the Toronto Islands. They manage to last until nightfall before the idealized notion of sleeping beneath the stars gives way to the more sensible lure of a warm apartment and comfortable bed. 

At first, their interaction plays like a mutual agreement based on long-term comfort and familiarity. But something else is brewing. Discontentment.  Before long, Siobhan’s ritual imaginings of what their alter-universe selves are like (the curse of someone unable to get past the ending of La La Land) starts eating at Sean’s confidence. Sean likes who they are in the universe they’re in. 

There is much to appreciate in Space and Time particularly in the way Gerrard identifies characters by way of framing them in a city he clearly has an affection for; whether it's shooting them through the windows of a Harbord Street laundromat or angling them at the corner of Brunswick and Bloor. Their story might be universal (learning to live without each other) but there is little doubt that these characters belong in Toronto. 

But Space and Time is an uneven film that lacks the kind of metaphysics the title suggests. The script is weighed down by dialogue too ponderous to ring as authentic—perhaps people do talk in philosophical (and metaphysical) jargon but they don’t talk that way all the time, and if they do, then they’re not much fun to hang out with.  And Gerrard doesn’t risk any chance for the audience to miss an emotional cue: characters declare their inner-thoughts through exaggerated expressions and unmistakably over-wrought body-language. 

No matter where we happen to be on the romance scale—having failed at love or struggling not to fail at love—most can relate to the ideas Gerrard outlines.  But the stakes need to be high for us to care if they reach a resolution. Sure, it’s only romance, but it should feel like life or death. Hey, romance is hard, even in fiction. It’s possible that romantic films (or anti-romantic films as Space and Time might well be classified) are the toughest of genres to get right. You can tell a joke and make people laugh, you can quick-edit in a jump-scare and make people scream, but it’s a whole other skill to make people care. 

Gerrard shows great intentions with Space and Time, and it seems that everyone involved with the movie is onboard to see those intentions through. But like Sean’s best intentions for an overnight anniversary adventure on the island, sometimes good intentions go awry. 

Space and Time. Written and directed by Shawn Gerrard. Stars Victoria Kucher and Steven Yaffee. Opens Friday, February 21.