Director Klaudia Reynicke has come to TIFF with a film that mixes equal parts Charlie Kauffman and Greta Gerwig. If those two creative forces sound like an odd couple, believe me – they are.

LOVE ME TENDER is the story of Seconda (Barbara Giordano). Saddled with deep levels of anxiety, Seconda has been inside of her parents’ home for months…wearing the same clothes, watching the same old shows, and just summoning enough strength to make it to another day. One morning, her mother dies. Soon after that, her father leaves. Seconda has been virtually alone for a very long time, but now she is actually alone.

What happens next starts out unsettling and claustrophobic…but soon turns absurd and unforgettable.

LOVE ME TENDER isn’t an easy watch. The beginning is truly fraught and contained in the closest of corners. For some, it may feel familiar and remind them of bad days, weeks, or months. For others, it may be a look into a window they’d rather not peek. However, interwoven with all of that stress and seclusion is something painfully beautiful.

Reynicke and Giordano has recognized our worst impulses. They have seen our moments of fight-or-flight and decided to tell us “There’s no wrong decision”. They have how people we look up to disappoint us, and they want to remind us that these disappointments say more about them than they do about us.

Seconda spends most of LOVE ME TENDER’s second half in an absurdly unfashionable turquoise track suit; hood pulled up, sleeves rolled down, insulated and isolated. The visual never gets old, and the metaphor is apt. We can walk around the world trying to keep all of what might affect us at-bay, but we will look foolish when we try. Or we can unzip, roll-up, open ourselves and let what comes our way truly affect us.

It makes us feel afraid, vulnerable, and insecure…but then, that’s the nature of life itself. We need to approach it that way – to let the light in, and keep moving forward after those around us have stopped…

…and then we must dance.