There’s an adage about the person who takes on too many roles on a film set being the death of the movie (see a number of M. Night Shyamalan’s films for reference) Film making is, after all, a collective art. So, when it’s apparent that German actress Aylin Tezel not only wrote and directed Falling into Place but also stars, it’s hard not to be impressed.

While this doom-laden love story doesn’t have the power and beauty of something like Once it does manage to deliver enough surprises to stay on the right side of cliched, as well as giving two quality actors a chance to shine, making it worth the watch.

After a gently bleak opening on a wintry Isle of Skye, promising us a dose of Scottish miserabilism, the romance between Tezel’s Kira and Ian, played by Chris Fulton (Outlander) has rather cliched beginnings. They meet drunkenly in a pub, laughing about how the people they were supposed to be with let them down, as they stay up talking until dawn. However, this contrasts nicely with the grittier aspects of the story to come. Questions about Ian’s family soon arise, which at this stage is really what keeps us watching.

It’s soon apparent that the protagonists are relatable and real, rather than especially likable. Ian is every single woman’s nightmare: good looking and full of himself, openly cheating on his girlfriend, and emotionally broken. Kira’s still horribly stuck on her ex. They’re the antithesis to romcom heroes, instead of making innocent mistakes, these two really make us cringe. As the pair continue to blunder through, the film doesn’t run the emotional course we expect. It unfolds as an insightful character study of nihilistic lost souls whose real problem is a lack of connection, with themselves, with their families, with each other. It’s a narrative of and for a lost Millennial generation, now at an age where they feel they should know better but perhaps still don’t.

The plot could have been stronger. Ian’s awakening seems rather convenient and without clear cause and effect; after a while the ending seems inevitable. The visual move from Skye to London is a little jarring and raises the question of why Skye in the first place? For Ian, it’s a place he’s trying to escape from, but for Kira it’s a land of freedom and good memories. The film makers use sound and the lack of it to effectively convey emotions and, overall, the film derives ‘beauty from sadness and vulnerability’, as Kira says about Ian, but the style is largely conventional. However, there is a bravery in the storytelling and it’s exciting to see what Aylin Tezel will do next.

On general release now