Hateship, Loveship is a sweet, strange little story about love and playing a tough hand in life. Kristen Wiig plays a sheltered maid who moves into Nick Nolte’s house to care for granddaughter Hailee Steinfeld, and though a bizarre chain of events and circumstances she winds up thrown together with the child’s drug-addicted, ex-con father (Guy Pearce). It’s based on an Alice Munro short story and despite this inherent limitation  (the movie totally feels like an expanded short story) they managed to craft a movie with more emotional content and character development than most modern indie films. The dialog is decent, and the characters (even the minor ones) traverse legitimate developmental arcs, especially Wiig and Pearce, who grow and develop in quirky but believable ways as they bring out the best in each other despite everything life has dealt them. None of this is super-moving, or super-interesting, but there is a humble earnestness to the story which is very pleasing and satisfying, and one comes away from this film feeling happy, refreshed and nourished, in a way quite similar to the effect of 1990s Indie Renaissance films.

The star of the cast is Guy Pearce, a marvelous actor who never really got his due. He brings great warmth and nuance to the complex character of the drug-addicted son-in-law, and his presence and performance make the whole film work. Kristen Wiig made somewhat less of an impression on me. I really like her as an comic actress, and although she did a fine job playing the role perfectly straight, her performance was a bit too understated, and she failed to communicate much about the character beyond her surface-level roboticness. The supporting cast is strong and winning, even though none of them have terribly much to do.

I’d recommend Hateship, Loveship. It’s a sweet little film.