Directed by Tony Fisher

Love and its attendant anguish have been the meat and potatoes of storytelling since there were stories to tell. Durable and malleable, it underpins or augments films across genre and topic. Contemporary courtship, fanciful reverie, and a generous helping of carnality among uncommonly handsome people is what we indulge ourselves in and export abroad. There’s little wonder that people want to immigrate.

The Trouble with Men and Women brings as little pretense as its title. The characters are so pedestrian one might wonder if the extras had stumbled in front of the camera. This is about you and me, bumbling through those frequented but uncharted waters in search of a mate.

When Matt’s (Joseph McFadden) longtime girlfriend decides to call it quits, he finds himself in a situation quite unfathomable: the dating scene. The problem is that he is not looking for sex, but love. The fact that this affable bloke accepts his humiliations with a measure of equanimity does not make them any less painful.

Set in working-class England, The Trouble with Men and Women is well written and acted. The characters are without the standard American middle-class gratifications and distractions, from iPods to personal means of transport. Relationships are central to their lives — a fact that comes across clearly, making this unadorned script a very pleasurable experience.

Dreaming Lhasa (2005)

Directed by Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam

Dreaming Lhasa is an attempt by documentarians Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam to spotlight the tragedy in Tibet, through a fictional narrative. Message movies are nothing unusual in the post-9/11 world, but even when done by the most skilled and experienced they require a deft balancing act between social commentary and the requisites of drama.

In Dreaming Lhasa, an Americanized Tibetan refugee has left her husband and children back in the states to make a documentary, interviewing Tibetans who have escaped their homeland with tales of severe torture under Chinese rule. In the course of her work, she aids a refugee who has a special mission infused with a touch of mystery and danger. With a bit of sexual tension thrown in for good measure, it makes for a somewhat compelling, but nonetheless wanting narrative. But that’s beside the point, which is to find some palpable way to remind the world about an ongoing crisis.

Dreaming Lhasa also plays at the Northwest Film Forum May 4-May 10.