The title of Carl Hunter’s feature directorial debut, Sometimes Always Never, refers to a rule regarding men’s three-button suit jackets.  It's a rule Bill Nighy's Alan, a tailor, shares with his teen grandson Jack (Louis Healy). This may make it seem like Alan’s vocation is key to the film's plot, but really it's given just as much weight as almost everything else in this downbeat trifle of a dramedy -- which is to say, not much. In contrast, the one thing the movie gives plenty of weight is Alan’s love of the board game Scrabble.

In fact, Scrabble is what ties the characters in the film together. The irony is that despite Alan and his family’s love of words when they can be used to score points on a Scrabble board, they’re unable to communicate with one another, leading to strained relationships, especially between Alan and his son, Peter (Sam Riley). Yet, the movie is so quirkily low-key, the family dynamics and the mystery at the heart of the story never quite resonate, making for an experience that feels like Wes Anderson-light.

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The plot centers on Alan and Peter’s quest to find their long-lost son and brother, Michael. During a dispute over a game of Scrabble (actually a cheap knock-off, as Peter likes to point out), Michael left the family home and never came back, leaving Alan and Peter to wonder what happened to him -- and if he’s still alive at all. When an unidentified body appears in a nearby town they visit the morgue to see if it’s Michael. Meanwhile, Alan spends his days plastering missing persons flyers on car windshields and his nights walking the streets hoping he’ll finally find his son. That is, until he decides that an anonymous user he’s challenged in online Scrabble plays just like Michael, and therefore, must be him.

The mystery of what happened to Michael is Alan's major focus, which also makes it the jumping off point to explore how his relationship with Peter has suffered because of his obsession. Yet the film is vague of many details. Peter knows he’s not the favored son, but it’s unclear if it was always that way or if this became an issue only when Michael went missing. It’s also unclear how long ago Michael walked out. It’s certainly been several years, but it may have been decades given Peter has since married Sue (Alice Lowe) and raised Jack. Nonetheless, it's clear Alan idealizes Michael but has nothing to say to Peter; and just in case the dynamic is lost on the viewer, Jack’s new girlfriend Rachel (Ella-Grace Gregoire) helpfully explains the biblical story of the prodigal son (and his overlooked brother) about halfway through the film.

Yet while the mystery and the fraught family dynamics are meant to drive the story, the movie is so low-key that it doesn’t have much narrative momentum. The performances are all excellent, especially Nighy (no surprise given he’s wonderful in everything he does), but the actors speak in hushed tones and don’t let their characters get too emotive. Although this suits the style of the movie, it makes it challenging to care about it.

Instead, the movie emphasizes style over substance. The set design and shooting style are giddy and offbeat, with quirky and inventive visual flourishes -- like using a drawing of a boat sailing on the water instead of an actual boat -- to punctuate various story beats. These stylistic choices are a lot of fun to watch and when the muted plot lags or drags they help keep the audience engaged.

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The other place Sometimes Always Never excels is in its Scrabble action. If you happen to be a Scrabble enthusiast, you may want to take notes while watching as the movie gives away plenty of facts and figures about the game. It also has the potential to alert you to some especially high-scoring and obscure words to deploy the next time you break out the Scrabble board.

For the rest of us, however, Sometimes Always Never isn’t quite so gripping. While the film’s stylized visuals make it pop and the performances are sympathetic and pleasant, the story is too ephemeral to make much of a mark. The movie includes many noteworthy elements, but in the end, they don’t combine to add up to a high score.

Sometimes Always Never was written by Frank Cottrell Boyce and directed by Carl Hunter. It stars Bill Nighy, Sam Riley, Alice Lowe, Jenny Agutter, Louis Healy, Tim McInnerny and Ella-Grace Gregoire, and is being released on VOD on Friday, July 10.

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