Step Back, Doors Closing
Written and Directed by Carter Ward
Starring Carmen Berkeley and Reilly Walters
Runtime: 1 hour and 38 minutes
Unrated
Screening at the Omaha Film Festival March 15

by Daniel Pecoraro, Staff Writer

Step Back, Doors Closing will either be endearing or exhausting to viewers, with little opportunity in between. It is the purest possible distillation of rom-com twee, as if it were borne out of a lab. A depiction of a picturesque twenty-four-hour romance (and maybe more?) between two twentysomethings beginning on the DC Metro, it packs as much cuteness into its ninety-eight minutes as any film I can think of.

As someone who’s an expert in platonic friendships made via transit (I’m celebrating the tenth anniversary of meeting my friend Sara on the G train in Brooklyn, and seven since I struck a friendship at the four-top seats on a New York to Boston Megabus trip), and as a fan of whirlwind, see-five-museums-in-a-day, totally draining “vacations” in Washington, I felt like this film was in my wheelhouse. But despite the cute (and semi-relatable, at least to me!) premise and some neat on-location shots, there just doesn’t feel like enough in this two-hander.

Our couple is Ryan (Reilly Walters), a DMV native who’s unmoored career-wise and just out of a four-year relationship, and Julisa (Carmen Berkeley) a West Coast grad school student in town for a conference. After Julisa drops her phone in the toilet and then smashes her tablet on the National Airport floor, she ends up on the metro with Ryan not far behind her, unsure of how to get to her friend Sierra (Michelle Macedo)’s apartment. (That’s why you always print out backup info and write down trip contacts, folks.) Ryan steps in, offering Julisa to send Sierra a message on his phone, getting her out of a subway-induced panic attack, and asking to guide her through Washington over the course of the night. From a party at Ryan’s friend Kesang (Ashley Romans)’s place, to the Proposal Booth at Martin’s Tavern in Georgetown, and eventually to Sierra’s place, Ryan and Julisa quickly fall for each other over the course of the night, with the next morning and afternoon left to figure out what comes next for our two bi-coastal would-be-lovers.

Berkeley and Walters are certainly charming and have great chemistry together; the response I had to them most of the film was along the lines of, “aw, look at these two cuties,” which is a better outcome than many misbegotten on-screen pairings. And of course, it has Washington as its backdrop, and writer-director Carter Ward uses the District well, from the airport to Georgetown to the National Mall. (Though Julisa’s surprise that the Smithsonian is free took me out of the film a bit. Free museuming is the best part of going to DC!)

But Step Back is a bit of a one-trick pony; the cuties in the city are all the film has. Sierra, Kesang, and stagehand by day, rideshare driver/Magical Middle Easterner Mohammed (Mershad Torabi), bring little to the table as characters, beyond other people for our leads to talk to and have in their lives. Neither character has much in the way of a discernible personality, beyond the obvious features of being in one’s early twenties: unsure of the future, inexperienced in the ways of the real world, and pretty horny. And, beyond a kind of will-they/won’t-they undercurrent in the last third of the film—with Julisa considering dropping out of grad school, and Ryan pondering a transfer from one Trader Joe’s crew to another out west—our two leads are not dealt any challenges. The result is a lovely day together for Julisa and Ryan, and the cinematic equivalent of a chiffon cake for the viewer: light, airy, sweet, and enjoyable, but not exceptionally filling.

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