Hope Davis is Erin, a nurse newly jilted by her left-wing radical boyfriend; Alan Gelfant is Alan, a plumber struggling through college and volunteering at the Aquarium with hopes of becoming a marine biologist. He's into Frankie the loan shark (Victor Argo) for his tuition, and Frankie, for his own sordid political gain, wants to use Alan to put a scare into Aquarium officials. Even more menacing than Frankie is Erin's interfering mom, who places personal ads for her in the local papers. Erin and Alan seem perfect for each other, but they spend the entirety of the film circulating through the same urban venues and recursively coming into near-contact. Will they ever meet? That's the question that keeps the film afloat, and though Davis and Gelfant are amiable enough, the real hook here is Anderson's energetic craftsmanship and Boston's opulent cityscape.