Exit Lane

Veurink debuts with a rocky take on When Harry Met Sally that begins as a straightforward modern adaptation before veering wildly in a new direction. After graduating from the same Midwestern college in 2017, strangers Marin Voss and Teddy McCarrel road trip to New York City. Though Veurink gives her protagonists new motivations—“cool girl” Marin, who’s grieving her late father, vows never to return to Iowa, while romantic Teddy dreams of settling down in his childhood hometown—she also lifts dialogue directly from the original. Most notably, she has Marin parrot Harry’s assertion that men and women can’t be friends, an already old-fashioned theory that feels especially bizarre here given that Marin is bisexual. Despite bonding—and kissing—on the road, Teddy and Marin part ways in New York. Three years later, they run into each other at a bar and Marin ditches her girlfriend for some late-night karaoke with Teddy. The next time-skip finds Teddy in a new relationship in Manhattan while now-single Marin has relocated to Copenhagen. The pair carry out a long-distance emotional affair that culminates in phone sex. It’s hard to find the infidelity endearing and almost as soon as the pair finally get together for real, an abrupt and poorly handled third act conflict tears them apart. The chaotic plotting isn’t helped by one-note characters and awkward prose. This disappoints. (Sept.)