A random meeting between two recently heartbroken men—one straight, one gay—turns fateful in Jerry Ross Barrish’s offbeat deconstruction of modern love and toxic relationships, set and filmed in an early 1980s San Francisco where AIDS had yet to fully enter public discourse. Fittingly narrated around an investigation, the film sorts through a puzzle box of flashbacks, heartbreaks, and ignored clues as it tracks two love affairs slowly going wrong, with Barrish ignoring typical Hollywood romantic-drama conventions to instead focus on quiet dialogues and the gaps between words—and people. Scenes of San Francisco’s early 1980s gay life add veracity and even a certain melancholy, knowing what was to come.