Broken Lines (15)

Starring: Doraly Rosa, Paul Bettany, Harriet Walter

Some good acting enlivens this modest and not altogether believable drama of thwarted passion in North London's Finsbury Park.

Dan Fredenburgh and Doraly Rosa collaborated on the script and take the leads. He's grieving the death of his father, an old-school Jewish tailor, and unsure about marrying his fiancée (Olivia Williams); she's a waitress struggling to live with her boyfriend (Paul Bettany) after his boxing career has been disabled by a stroke. The first-time director Sallie Aprahamian makes good use of the urban locations, and the sense of an era coming to an end – a tailoring business without an heir – is also strong. But the device of one lover spying on another through an uncurtained rear window, and the subsequent discovery thereof, is a dramatic convenience too far.