Thirty-five years after “When Harry Met Sally…” requested the query of whether or not straight women and men could be mates with out intercourse getting in the best way, “Matt and Mara” rephrases it with extra anxiously fraught social stakes — elevating the accompanying and ever-relevant question of whether or not two neurotic writers ought to actually fraternize with one another in any respect. The fourth characteristic from Canadian writer-director Kazik Radwanski is an itchy, unsettled and infrequently poignant relationship drama, constant along with his earlier works not simply in shared personnel — notably lead actors Deragh Campbell and Matt Johnson, who additionally headlined Radwanski’s 2019 breakout “Anne at 13,000 Ft.” — however in a tingly, seasick storytelling sensibility that makes one thing risky and cinematic out of ostensibly static materials.

A decade or two in the past, when the mumblecore motion was at its zenith in North American indie filmmaking, a trim, talky character piece like “Matt and Mara” — a spotlight of this yr’s Berlinale Encounters competitors — may need appeared much less of an outlier than it does on the 2024 arthouse scene. Which isn’t to say that Radwanski’s freewheeling, improvisatory strategy feels dated or spinoff. As with “Anne at 13,000 Ft.,” a gnawing character examine which ran on the quivery sense of characters and actors being pushed to the sting of their consolation stage, his newest resists coziness even because it pursues a generally heat, generally uncooked intimacy between characters who know one another both too nicely or not fairly sufficient, relying on what stage of companionship they choose.

On the outset, Radwanski’s fleet, on-the-fly script furnishes the viewers with little backstory relating to its syllabically appropriate title characters, as an alternative trusting us to fill of their historical past (which seems to be each easy sufficient and somewhat difficult) as we get to know them. Mara (Campbell), a thirtysomething artistic writing professor at a Toronto college, seems to have a number of reactions directly — exhilaration and exasperation lapping one another on the actor’s exceptional, sharp-planed face — when Matt (Johnson), whom she hasn’t seen in a number of years, blusters unannounced into one in all her courses.

It’s a sometimes brash, entitled stunt from a person whose cocksure persona and straightforward, dudeish tone have made him one thing of a star on the New York lit scene, with a number of well-regarded novels to his identify. Half a lifetime in the past, they had been shut mates in school in Canada, and thought to be equally prodigious abilities. Now Mara has gone the educating route whereas nonetheless awaiting her literary breakthrough, and elevating a younger daughter along with her husband Samir (Mounir Al Shami), a good-looking, achieved musician from whom she appears nearly totally disconnected. To mutual mates, she somewhat jarringly pronounces that she has no feeling in anyway for music; the subtext is discomfitingly apparent.

Into this breach, calculatedly or in any other case, steps Matt — again on the town for an indefinite interval, and decided to work his means again into Mara’s life along with his appreciable pressure of persona. Once they’re mistaken for a pair by a stranger, she runs with the charade, partly as a result of her outdated buddy brings a fizzy power to her life that it’s been lacking for a while, however maybe extra crucially as a result of he reminds her of when her life was much less placid and extra promising. When Samir drops out of driving her to an out-of-town literary pageant the place she’s because of give a chat, Matt agreeably steps in — including a charged cease to that almost all romantically auspicious of vacationer spots, Niagara Falls, to the itinerary.

For a lot of the movie, we don’t know precisely whether or not Matt and Mara’s first estrangement was merely a matter of geography and circumstance, or a extra personally motivated rift. But the extra time the reunited mates spend collectively, the perimeters of their relationship edging uncertainly into much less platonic territory, we see the methods by which their respective vanities and insecurities chafe in opposition to one another, now exacerbated by age and previous expertise. Campbell’s and Johnson’s performances, each professional in aptly clashing registers, contribute to the unease: Her nervy, compressed depth is initially tempered by his breezy jocularity earlier than, in time, the 2 energies start to irritate one another.

Radwanski’s script is low on incident — and the movie, at a good, jittery 80 minutes, can afford to be — however this rigidity retains it taut and pressing, within the method of significantly gripping people-watching: Even Nikolay Michaylov’s stressed, generally invasively close-up digital camera operates on a detailed curiosity in human nature itself, its gaze fastened keenly on its protagonists’ reactions to varied miniature, on a regular basis epiphanies and bombshells. “Matt and Mara” isn’t a relationship examine the place you particularly root for the union of its title characters, however you’ll be able to’t look away from them both means.