Eleanor loves Conor, Conor loves Eleanor. An idyllic love story within the chaos of New York takes a nasty turn when a tragic event hits them both hard. While Eleanor tries to figure things out on her own, Conor tries to deal with her absence. They each try to manage the separation in their own way; what seems banal to outsiders is heartbreaking for them.

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Ned Benson’s The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby is no ordinary movie: it is three. The first two, with the subtitles Her and Him, show the points of view of two people dealing with the universal experience of a bad break-up. The third, presented at the Cannes Film Festival and subtitled Them, edits the other two parts together, cutting quite a bit out in the process. The idea is not revolutionary but still gives the movie a special aura, in the vein of Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, another pioneering film from American independent cinema. A lot gets lost in mixing the two movies together, however. The result is simple, banal, and, at its worst moments, artificial. The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them exemplifies average independent cinema, which hides itself behind sincerity and ordinary sensitivity to mask its weaknesses. Also at fault is a weak script that relies on a succession of silences and discussions, virtually augmented by a non-chronological edit. Ned Benson’s debut doesn’t express much; if it weren’t for the charms of Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy, there wouldn’t be anything to watch.