Good Posture, a review - charming and sweet, Dolly Wells' debut strikes a comforting tone.

Good Posture is a movie about a woman who is lost, or lazy, or both. Lillian, a New York City newbie, moved to the Big Apple to live with her boyfriend, Nate, but you find out right away that that’s gone wrong. It’s gone wrong and now they’re separating. Lillian is moving into a new home to start her life, it just turns out that the home she’s moving to isn’t that far from her ex-boyfriends home. A few doors down, to be real. Moving on isn’t easy, but moving out was. Funded by her father, Lillian moves in with a man and a woman. The man soon moves out, after an argument with the woman. The woman, a writer of a number of bestselling novels, is called Julia. It is the relationship between Lil and Julia that is at the heart of this sweet, straightforward movie about being lost.

The relationship between Lillian and Julia starts off frosty. Julia is cynical, mean-spirited and not down for Lil’s shit. Lil, on the other hand, lacks independence and drive. She moved to New York for a boy and now the boy is gone and so is the motivation. This is the movie in a nutshell.

The writing for this film is sweet. That’s exactly where I would start. The writing is sweet and the performances, whilst perfectly fitting, are subtle. Emily Mortimer, so comfortable playing Julia, spends a lot of her time waiting for the film to happen at her. Whilst the key to this story is the relationship between these two women, the instigator of everything is Grace Van Patten’s Lillian. Immature but wholly warm, Lil is an interesting character that women rarely represent in cinema; lazy, a bit of an arse and confused but not mean-spirited. Just flawed. But this never becomes overwhelming within the story. It’s the story of a confused woman’s life that let’s the sweetness seep through too. And once this does, the story of the relationship between Julia and Lil takes off.

The film starts to pay off when Julia’s husband Don moves out. Don, the whole reason Lil was invited to move in and room in their house, is no longer there and the awkward sense that Lil is no longer welcome within the house is real and obvious. Julia, whilst Lil is away, starts to communicate with Lil through Lil’s own notebook in her room. Telling her to water her plants, cook dinner and clean up in lieu of rent, the bossy Julia grates on Lillian, and without seeing face-to-face, they begin to exchange notes daily. Often rude, but sometimes sweet, their relationship grows to something of a pen-pal-in-the-same-house level of openness.

A chance meeting with her ex-boyfriend spurs Lil on to make a home-made documentary on Julia and her writing career, including interviews with newspaper columnists and fans of her work. Inspirational, maybe. But invasive and unwanted, definitely. It is here, when Julia finds out, that the relationship breaks down once more.

The movie ends with a redemption, and as Lil moves on from the house, Julia and Dom make amends too. Everything returns to how it was, except for Lil, who seems to have learnt a life lesson or two and is ready to start her life proper. If it sounds like very little happens within the movie, you would be right. But the interactions between characters (of which there are around 8 in total) are quirky and off-beat but very enjoyable. It’s tough to describe this film other than to state that it’s charm comes from Van Patten’s lead, from the story and from the film’s Brooklyn setting. Autumnal and charming, this movie is worth seeing purely for the ride, regardless of the outcome. For Dolly Well’s debut feature, this leaves a mark and reminds you that all good movies don’t need to shock you and trap you with consequence. Sometimes, a nice little ride is all you need.