Sophomoric pretension abounds in Jennifer Elster's debut feature Particles Of Truth, as the title alone warns. Elster (who also wrote and directed) stars as a nervous New York artist who spends the 48 hours leading up to her group show falling in love with germophobic writer Gale Harold. The two lovers are stymied by problematic parents—hers are drug addicts, his are excessively proud upper-class professionals—and Elster's sunny Christian roommate Elizabeth Van Meter, who's dating a psychopath. (The film announces Van Meter's Christianity by having her sing "God is love, praise him, praise him" while she's making breakfast.) When Elster and Harold first meet, she initially blows him off, noting that "trusting can bring a lot of false hope." He replies, "Not trusting can bring a lot of loneliness."
Trust becomes Particles Of Truth's major theme. Van Meter excuses her boyfriend's craziness by insisting, "I trust what people tell me"; Elster responds that "maybe that's the problem." But just when it seems that Particles Of Truth is becoming a low-key paean to opening up, Elster pushes the story toward a surprising sequence of violence—set, in a bit of forced irony, to Eddie Rabbitt's "I Love A Rainy Night"—that puts more contrived barriers in the path of a happy ending.
Though clumsy, Particles Of Truth isn't hopeless. Before turning to filmmaking, Elster made her living as a celebrity fashion stylist, so she has a good eye for color, motion, and the feel of New York in summer. And, because she worked primarily on music videos, she uses music well: Montages set to songs by Elbow and Talk Talk outpace the main action, getting beneath Elster's fear of showing her work and how it relates to a fear of showing herself. At times, the movie's sorrow is palpable, though it's never believable.