The Imposters

It’s commonly known that it’s not a good idea to get romantically involved with somebody who’s just been through a break-up. The panic of instability combined with the sudden thrill of freedom – whether wanted or not – can make a person in that situation do crazy things. It can also make people willing to countenance ideas which, on later inspection, don’t make a lot of sense. Maya (Marie Everett) has, however, a history of making unwise decisions.

Did she sleep with one of her students? It’s an allegation to that effect that is that final straw for Anna (Tegan Mordt). Maya insists it’s untrue, that the teenager was just infatuated, and clips of the girl talking to camera certainly support that impression – but the fact that a different student is flirting with Maya when Anna enters the room suggests that, at the very least, Maya is letting them get too close. When Anna walks out the door, Maya is distraught, and heads for the place where she usually goes to relax – the local park – but within minutes of getting there, she’s flirting with another woman, a runner with whom she forms an immediate connection.

This is Hattie (Chynna Walker), whose haphazard approach to combining shades of purple reflects a similar approach to life. They wind up spending the rest of the day together, and after night falls, Hattie invites her to go to Spain and join her in her lavish coastal home. At this point, the average person might be asking themselves how likely this is. Maya is pleasant enough looking, but not somebody whom one expects to be a magnet for wealthy younger women. In her freshly single condition, however, and familiar as she is with impressing women who are, well, impressionable, she fails to see the danger.

The second half of the film is rather less concerned with romance, shifting instead into noir territory. Once its central trick has been revealed, however, it quickly runs out of cards. This part of the story is thinly plotted and the actors, though basically competent, don’t have the chops to turn into something more interesting. It badly needs to do something different at the end, but what we get is formulaic.

There are more serious problems where the direction is concerned. Though he has a number of credits to his name, Nicholas Winter struggles with basic framing, resulting in a film full of unintentional visual distractions. What are clearly intended as moody noir shots are, more often than not, simply dark; we don’t get light on the actors’ faces when we need it. Elsewhere, flat lighting makes everything more difficult for the actors.

Though there are the bones of a good story here, the film is crudely put together and feels, at best, like a rehearsal for a more creditable work. Its creators have some studying still to do.