"Commit! Just listen to that word, it's what they do in insane asylums!" -- Allegra, 'Puccini for Beginners'

Film Remember I was writing the other day about how the narrative form in The Jungle Book is as simply as these things can be -- and isn't Martin Scorcese's After Hours essentially a remake without the animals, songs and set at night?

This morning I watched the very sweet, Puccini for Beginners, a New York digital indie from writer/director Maria Maggenti (who a decade ago presented us with the quirky The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love) which has a narrative structure which like The Jungle Book seems very simple but is ultimately fasinatingly complex.

I'm not giving too much if I explain that in the prologue to Puccini, its revealed that the protagonist Allegra is a lesbian who's been dating and sleeping with both sides of a couple who've split up to be with her. There's a freeze frame and we don't know much else, but there's enough action to imply that the ensuing moments aren't going to go well.

But then, rather than continuing from that point, the action doubles back nearly a year and then over the course of three captioned acts (meant to mimic an opera) it's explained how this state of affairs developed, but and this is important, it's not a flashback, it's the kind of break in the temporal order that you find in a Tarantino film. It's not Allegra reflecting back on all the horrible things she's done.

We watch her going through the motions, making the discoveries, and feeling sorry for her all along the way, because we know the result. That isn't usual in romantic comedies -- an average episode of Columbo perhaps were we know who the killer is and we're hoping the detective discovers it first, but certainly not in this kind of film. It's intoxicating.

Well, yes, we already know in romantic comedies that the couples will get together, but what's interesting here is that we basically know that the couple, whatever the configuration, won't stay together. It's funny and bittersweet right from the opening few minutes. We do discover that there's more to the underlying emotions though but I'll not spoil that at least because it's a film well worth seeing and a real antidote to the rather rubbish romances which have drifted out of Hollywood lately.