In Spite of Ourselves
“In Spite of Ourselves” is a winner already, snagging Best Narrative Feature and Best Narrative Feature Actor for the lead, Brett Dier, at the Mystic Film Festival. I caught “In Spite of Ourselves” at the Heartland Film Festival, where it had its Midwest premiere. It is the feature writing and directing debut of Josh Loeb, a Michelin-starred restaurateur, and while it took a while to win me over, it eventually got there.
The first third is one of those movies where everything is beautiful except the story. The music was perfect throughout the film. Portland looks great, and the film clearly knows it. The scenery does a lot of the early work while the plot figures out what it wants to be. Los Angeles is the opposite. Archie lives there, and most of the time we spend in LA is inside an apartment, which is about as visually exciting as it sounds.
Then the story catches up. In the second and third acts the film starts tugging at the heartstrings, and it earns most of it. I wouldn’t call it great, but it’s good, and the back half makes up for the slow start.
The leads carry a lot of that. Brett Dier plays Archie, an LA based stand-up comic performing in Portland, and he is charismatic as can be and funny. He reminds me of Jack Quaid, so if you like him on “The Boys,” you’ll find a lot to enjoy here. Conor Leslie plays Hannah, a Portland baker, and she is stunning. Her eyes carry a whole pool of emotion, and she does some of her best work without saying a word. The two met on this set and were married in September 2026, and the chemistry on screen backs up the story.
The supporting cast is strong too. Mo Mandel and Alyssa Limperis play Archie’s “only” friends, as the films ongoing joke, and they bring a lot of the comic energy outside the central romance. The running jokes about Chef Jake, played by Ethan Ingle (himself an Emmy award winner), had me laughing every time they came back. Britain Seibert plays Hannah’s friend Becca, and she gets one of the more fun threads in the film. The vibe I got from her character was the mystery of whether or not Becca is in love with Hannah. This is never resolved, and that ambiguity makes her scenes with Archie sparkle. I’m glad the film left it alone.
The most touching scene belongs to Glenn Morshower, who plays Archie’s father. He is living in a memory care center in his later years, and the film suggests he is not getting the medication he needs. After an incident, Archie breaks him out and, with nowhere else to take him, brings him to a comedy show. His friends are supposed to keep an eye on his dad, but they get distracted, and the father ends up on stage. What follows is one of the most moving moments in the film. It shows that even people with dementia have moments of clarity, which is part of what makes their struggle to remember the day to day so hard to accept. Morshower plays it quietly, and it works.
There’s on odd transition to a voiceover “flash-forward” late in the movie that seemed out of place, but it didn’t distract from the story or film as a whole. The “com” part of the rom-com was subtle throughout, and really highlighted the appropriate moments in the film, I pleasantly found myself laughing throughout, with maybe two or three belly laughs, that luckily synchronized with the rest of the viewers in the theater.
My only real complaint had nothing to do with the film. The people around me talked through the entire screening, which is a good way to miss a joke and a worse way to watch a love story.
Overall, “In Spite of Ourselves” is an amiable premier venture for Loeb, and his passion for food clearly shows throughout. I struggled to rate it, but based on the cinematography, and the acting, I was able to settle on an appropriate number.
In Spite of Ourselves was made available in a limited release on October 2 with it’s premiere at the Heartland Film Festival on October 10. West coast release is planned for October 16, 2026 at Westside’s Landmark Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles
3 out of 5 stars.
