Movie review: ‘Walkaway’

So many montages, so little time.

“Walkaway,” a small romantic melodrama about four Indian American couples in New York, is only 97 minutes but feels much longer. It suffers from a marked lack of energy, a condition not cured by its many, many pop-music-scored montages.

The film has something of a Tyler Perry feel: It’s populated by young, professional Indian Americans who are introduced over an accompaniment of mild urban jazz and heavy-handed exposition, with best friends reciting facts they both must have known for years.

It’s clearly supposed to be about the strain cultural differences can place on relationships, but the movie feels more like a long, low moan about wincing guys torn between lady loves and traditional mothers. One has a French fiancée; they argue once and suddenly split. One is a neglectful husband wrapped up in work and video games. One plays guitar, croons jazzy tunes and mows down the ladies until he meets his match. And one is inexplicably set up by his snobbish mom to meet a gorgeous woman of different economic status. There will be conflict. And montages.

“Walkaway” presents a warmly photographed world in which people are constantly calling off marriages and moving out, then not taking the calls of the person whom, a scene ago, they wanted to spend their lives with. There isn’t really a plot or much reason for any of the couples to be together.

“Walkaway.” MPAA rating: Running time: 1 hour, 37 minutes. In English and some Hindi with English subtitles. Playing at the Laemmle Fallbrook in West Hills; Laemmle Big Cinemas in Norwalk.