Whenever I see that a movie is written and directed by the same person who has the lead role I always feel my spidey sense tingling. The end results can be great, but they can also be absolutely terrible. X/Y actually lands in the middle. It’s a standard relationship drama, done well enough. Despite the fact that we’ve seen it all many times before, the film has enough decent moments to make it worth a watch.
Mark (played by writer-director Ryan Piers Williams) is pretty upset when his partner, Sylvia (played by America Ferrera, who also happens to be the partner of Williams in real life), confesses that she slept with a colleague (Common). This then leads into a movie that decides to follow four different characters separately as they try to deal with their own unhappiness. There’s Mark, Sylvia, Jake (a friend of Mark, played by Jon Paul Phillips), and Jen (a friend of Sylvia, played by Melonie Diaz). The problems for Mark and Sylvia are obvious, but Jake tries to cover up for the fact that he still misses his ex-girlfriend a hell of a lot, and Jen keeps finding herself falling for the wrong men, although she only tends to realise that after sleeping with them too quickly.
Not really as insightful or savvy as it likes to think it is, X/Y manages not to outstay its welcome thanks to the format used. Spending time with each of the four characters allows the film to feel like an anthology movie, with one or two strands interconnecting through each segment. My personal favourite out of the four characters was Jen, mainly because she didn’t try to deal with her problems by lashing out at other people.
The cast all do a decent job. Williams is a bit bland as Mark, and it’s more than a little suspicious that he wrote and directed himself a perfect, put-upon male figure, yet his character is good enough to keep viewers on his side, so that’s fine. Ferrera is very good as the selfish, driven Sylvia, a woman trying to give off the appearance of having everything under her control even as emotions bubble and rage under the surface. Phillips does a decent job, acting a bit cold and detached from any kind of emotional connection, and last, though by no means least, is Diaz as Jen. Unsurprisingly, considering how her character is, Diaz brightens up the screen, and lifts the movie up a notch.
You could live your life without seeing this movie and you wouldn’t feel as if you’d missed out on anything. It’s watchable, however, and Williams shows that he’s capable of creating some great moments. Maybe next time he can do a bit better.
WRITER/DIRECTOR: RYAN PIERS WILLIAMS
STARS: RYAN PIERS WILLIAMS, AMERICA FERRERA, JON PAUL PHILLIPS, MELONIE DIAZ, COMMON, JOSEPH GENERA
RUNTIME: 82 MINS APPROX
COUNTRY: USA
Film Rating: 
