This year's crowdpleasing winner of the Proxima competition at Karlovy Vary announces an original and endearing comic voice in freshman writer-director Martina Buchelová.
By Guy Lodge
Plus IconGuy Lodge
Film Critic
@guylodge See All
Courtesy of Ninja Film “I’m a lover, not a fighter / And I’m really built for speed,” sang Kinks frontman Ray Davies in at least one of the songs that shares a title with Slovakian writer-director Martina Buchelová‘s hugely appealing first feature. The first half of that lyric is true of Andrej (Adam Kubala), the shambling 20-year-old protagonist of this generation-specific romantic comedy; the second, not so much, as he spends much of this deliberately meandering, discursive film trying to restart a life that has stalled in spite of all his worst efforts. Structured as a patchwork of loosely connected, inconsistently chronological episodes, “Lover, Not a Fighter” feels rhythmically shaggy in a way that reflects the insecurities, anxieties and liberties of GenZ living, without patronizing its drifting characters.
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