‘Straight Up’ could be just what you’ve been searching for

Perhaps you scrolled past “Straight Up” on Netflix after reading that it’s about a gay guy who attempts to date a woman while engaging in virtually no sexual activity. It’s a story that needs to be really sharply written, with top-notch banter and an interest in both emotional complexity and modern, non-conventional relationship dynamics.

And that’s exactly what “Straight Up” is. As Todd (writer/director James Sweeney) and Rory (Katie Findlay of “How to Get Away with Murder”) bond over rapid-fire conversation -- their dynamic might deliver the most quips per second since “In the Loop” -- and progressively determine how much/little sex each wants with their major intellectual connection, “Straight Up” plays with intelligent people’s verbal volleys and the answers that evade them anyway. Todd, who deals with OCD along with his uncertainty about sexual identity, says house-sitting helps him meet people (as in, the homeowners just before they leave) and doesn’t mind not going to New York because he’s seen “Taxi Driver” and “Cloverfield” and gets the idea; Rory is a failed actress who’s done the research to confirm that shooting for the moon and missing will not, in fact, land you among the stars. Together they watch documentaries every Thursday to keep their relationship cognitively stimulating and try to parse out love from friendship and compatibility from denial.

That could be simultaneously formulaic and contrived, but Sweeney gives space to his characters’ vulnerabilities and truths without judgment -- considering non-binary identities and the difficulty of connecting with people who meet some needs and not others. “What if this is as good as it gets?” Todd wonders, “like that movie, ‘As Good as It Gets’?” “Sometimes something’s gotta give,” responds Rory, “like that movie, ‘The Day After Tomorrow.’” “Straight Up” challenges both viewers and its characters to feel, think and listen at the same time, something that’s easier said than done in reality and a rarity on screen. It’s similarly uncommon to see a movie where you just sink into the rhythm and unpredictability of what characters will say.

So what if the bottom kind of drops out of the narrative, and if the varying discomfort between Todd and Rory ultimately strains credulity. With a standout supporting turn from James Scully (Forty in “You”), it’s great getting to know these people, and “Straight Up” has enough style and weight to hold up to repeated viewings. Most relationship movies (not this one) love to emphasize being smart and funny as the ultimate character traits yet usually don’t create people like that; Todd and Rory, and “Straight Up” as a whole, have both qualities in spades.

B+

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