Blue Jay

Jim and Amanda were high school sweethearts in a small California town, then went their separate ways. About twenty years later, Jim comes back to deal with his late mother's house before putting it up for sale, while Amanda is in town visiting her pregnant sister. The two happen to run into each other in a grocery store in Crestline, California, and what starts as coffee turns into a longer evening spent revisiting their shared past, even as the lives they have built since then come into view. Mark Duplass plays Jim and Sarah Paulson plays Amanda, with Clu Gulager as Waynie.

The film is a drama with romance at its center, running eighty minutes. Alexandre Lehmann directed it from a screenplay by Mark Duplass, produced by Mel Eslyn and Xan Aranda, with Duplass Brothers Productions and The Orchard behind it. It was Lehmann's first feature, followed in later years by Paddleton, Meet Cute and Acidman.

Released in October 2016, Blue Jay holds a 7.5 out of 10 from 36 critics' reviews and a 7 out of 10 on TMDB from 547 votes, so critical and audience responses sit close together, both indicating a generally favorable reception. The small scale of the production matches its two-hander structure and intimate setting, and the restrained runtime keeps the focus on the two former partners and the conversation that reopens their history.